Guiding question: How does the text work to inform readers of the magazine’s content, and persuade potential readers to buy the magazine?

Men’s Health magazine is a monthly lifestyle magazine, covering topics such as fitness, fashion, and sex. The magazine should be regarded, primarily, as a consumer product intended to be purchased by readers. Since this is the case, and in order for the publisher to make profit, it must persuade potential readers to buy the magazine. Accordingly, the magazine cover, which consists of text and visual elements, is the main ’hook’ to inform readers of the magazine’s content. In order to persuade readers to make a purchase, the cover encourages readers to strive to become fit and successful, promising to show them how this can be achieved. In this way, the cover uses its linguistic, paralinguistic and visual modes to persuade readers to buy the magazine and inform them of the magazine's content. 

The cover is not really intended to be read and purchased by just anyone. Instead, the magazine seems to have a target audience of men who are between the ages of twenty and mid-forty, and more specifically men who have money to spend on luxury items and who take great interest in their appearance. Understanding the target audience is important to understanding the text’s construction and language. The approximate age of the target audience can be deduced from the lettering on the cover which highlights “age”, “40” and “50”. Readers are expected to be willing to spend money as the cover mentions “Best Fitness Classes”, suggesting the reader has money to spend on good fitness classes which are most likely expensive. That appearance is important to the reader is obvious from cover lines such as “ways to look & feel younger” and “farewell to the flab”. In fact, these cover lines promise the reader that the magazine will help him keep or improve his appearance. From this it can be inferred that the magazine's primary purpose is to sell copies to contemporary men who are getting older and fear that they might not be able to remain fit and youthful.

The key focus for this particular edition is “fit at any age”. The cover implies that a man can be handsome and athletic at any age and that the magazine will advise and assist men to achieve this end. The cover uses a variety of linguistic techniques to make this point. For example, the cover uses the phrase, “from DadBod to Greek God''. The reader can expect that the magazine will explain how they can change their physique. The phrase “DadBod” is lighthearted slang, playing on plosive sounds, for middle aged men who are slightly overweight. The phrase ”Greek God” is a metaphor. That is, the reader cannot literally become a Greek God, but they may be able to feel like and, to some degree, look like one once they have attained the ideal body and lost weight. Connotatively, the phrase “Greek God” is associated with male beauty. It also evokes themes of wisdom and strength. The man on the cover embodies these themes of beauty, wisdom and strength. There is a section of text on the cover which gives more information about the man pictured: “He's 57! Anton Nilson, the man you can grow up to be,”. Nilson appears to have the ideal male body type, as he is lean and muscular. His appearance is akin to a statue of a Greek God. The phrase “grow up to be” suggests that the reader can develop to attain Nilson’s appearance by following the advice given in the magazine. Nilson has grey hair which can be associated with wisdom (and is also a feature of ageing). The combination of Nilson's physical appearance and the associated linguistic description portrays him as a handsome man. Furthermore, Nilson is smiling, implying that he not only looks like an ideal man but has attained an ideal happy life. A happy life is a successful life. The cover uses Nilson to sell the magazine to male readers who may feel that they do not live an ideal life or have an ideal appearance yet, but aspire to it, and therefore might be interested in buying the magazine. The cover emphasizes specific adjectives such as “Hard”, “Strong”, “Fast”, and “Lean”, establishing a lexical cluster of words that reinforce ideas of muscularity and fitness. These words connote not only ideas about strength and health but also suggest a sense of (societally desirable) male attitude. Stereotypically, successful men are expected to be hard, strong, and fast in their work life too. An ideal man may literally have “Hard Abs” but he might also be mentally tough. The sense of these words is paralinguistically reinforced. That is, the words “Stronger”, and “Leaner” are written in bold and the words “Fast” and “Hard” are, relatively, larger than most other words in the text. The graphosemantic, visual appeal of these words effectively reinforce the persuasive function of the text. Therefore. a reader who is seeking to become a fit and successful man might be inspired by these words and their visual appeal, and therefore become inclined to buy the magazine. Indeed, throughout, the cover uses paralinguistic features to draw the attention of the reader to specific words. The text on the cover is printed in very different font sizes which means that some words in a very large print can be read from further away. For example, the large font text is visible to a reader who passes the magazine on a shelf in a store and who might feel invited to have a closer look at it.The use of colour is also significant. The text is blue, black, and red. The combination of colour and font seem to  make the text "fit at any age" the most important text element on the cover. Thematically, this text element is also linked to the model depicted on the cover, who is a 57 year old man. The paralinguistic features draw the attention of the reader to the key theme of the edition and thereby invite him to purchase the magazine.

In modern life, the ’ideal’ man, is not only fit and successful, but also has a sense of humour. The aspect of humour is indicated through the use of language, register, and tone on the magazine cover. The magazine uses informal registers through colloquial words such as “Dad Bod”, “Fast food”, or “6-pack kebabs”, which, given the overall theme of health and beauty, have a lighthearted, slightly ironic connotation. The use of informal register signals to the reader that the magazine is not only informative but also entertaining which would be another invitation for purchase. The humorous tone is complemented with more didactic text elements. That is, the language used on the cover feels slightly authoritative and patronising where it is, in effect, teaching the reader exactly what to do to achieve a specific goal. For example, the magazine mentions that it contains information about 25 ways the reader can look younger. In other words, the magazine presents itself as a guide, akin to a personal trainer. This suggests to the reader that buying the magazine will help them to achieve their goals, such as trying to look younger, in only a few easy steps. 

The magazine cover uses various techniques to persuade men in their twenties to mid-forties to buy the magazine. Linguistically, the magazine uses techniques such as metaphors, specific adjectives, and changes in register. Paralinguistically, the magazine uses techniques such as colour, font size, and photography. The combination of these techniques is used to convince the reader that the magazine can help them to become the ideal man and therefore advertise purchase of the product.