ESPN’s Body Issue shows that not all bodies are shrines

It’s a fairly dated but popular story: A national magazine experiences a decline in advertising revenue resulting from a financial crisis and responds by showing a little skin.

Or, in the case of the annual Body Issue from ESPN The Magazine, a lot of it.

The seventh edition of some of the world’s best athletes in nude and seminude photographs went live online this week and hits a newsstand near you Friday.

It debuted in 2009 with such names as Serena Williams and Nelson Cruz and Lolo Jones baring far more than their souls.

Dwight Howard also was featured in the first edition of the Body Issue, but there is no truth to the rumor he had the photographer fired after claiming the poor guy’s trigger finger had lost its touch.

We have reached another year, another collection of extremely well-positioned athletic poses without the presence of any sports writers.

How the magazine has discovered such long-term success without featuring an assortment of those physiques that chronicle the worldly achievements of athletes is beyond me.

It takes a lot of work sitting on the recliner for months on end watching “Seinfeld” reruns while eating the middle of Oreos to create such a figure.

Dad Bods don’t occur overnight.

Just ask Jim Harbaugh.

I suppose ESPN is still in the business of making money, however, which explains the absence of select (any) beat writers and columnists among those 24 athletes in the Body Issue. We wouldn’t want to irreparably harm those children who might pick up the magazine and skim its pages.

I’ve always compared the Body Issue to a U.S. Open golf course, which has nothing to do with Tiger Woods allegedly scoring with the former wife of a fellow player. As a side note, however, let me be the first to nominate Amanda Boyd (formerly Amanda Dufner) as a candidate for the 2016 edition.

There are just some shots the weekend hacker can’t make on a trek such as Pebble Beach, but others that befuddle even the PGA Tour’s brightest stars.

Point being, no one is faultless, and often those who are the best at something prove quite average.

Perfection can be defined with a pretty wide-ranging scope.

It’s the same with bodies.

There is only one rule for the athletes: Everyone is shot entirely in the buff, after which the magazine’s creative team crops and cuts and positions its final pictures for the edition so that those viewing it don’t need to be at least 17 or otherwise require an accompanying parent or guardian to do so.

The athletes are provided robes to wear between shots, but Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski reportedly chose to walk around the set naked for the entire day during his Body Issue moment in 2012.

That’s just Gronk being Gronk.

While most physiques in the issue are those a majority of the population might only achieve in their dreams, others are annually included to prove that athletic greatness can be accomplished with what some might believe a flawed form.

Sometimes, a six-pack really does mean your beverage of choice.

The magazine unveiled six covers this week for the 2015 Body Issue, and among those athletes chosen for such premier placement are two with Las Vegas ties — baseball player Bryce Harper of the Nationals and former UNLV track and field standout Amanda Bingson, who holds the American record in the hammer throw, competed at the London Olympics in 2012 and hopes to contend for a medal at the Rio Games next year.

It is the sort of contrast that continues to make the edition interesting.

Harper was convinced after last season to go lean and reported to spring training with 8 percent body fat. He told the magazine that while “God gave me a great body, I think my abs could be better than they are.”

I often think the same thing, but it’s tough to wish for something you’ve never had.

But if the ripped torso of Harper is what you have come to expect from the Body Issue, the shots of Bingson humanize things.

She is an example that world-class athletes come in all shapes and sizes and was charmingly candid with the magazine about her selection for this year’s issue. Bingson says she competes from 210 to 215 pounds.

“Generally, when you look at athletes, you see their muscles and all that stuff; I don’t have any of that,” Bingson told ESPN. “My arm is just my arm — it’s not cut, it’s not sculpted. I don’t have traps bulging out to my ears; I have a neck. I don’t have a six-pack. My legs are a little toned, but they aren’t bulging out. I’m just dense.

“I never knew that I was the fat kid in school until a boy told me that I was too fat. I thought, ‘What does that mean?’ I had always been so athletic and into sports; I didn’t think I was that fat. But everybody wants to fit that skinny ideal picture that we see on billboards all the time, and people would always remind me that that wasn’t me. So you just grow a thick skin. Like I said, I’ll still whip your ass if we ever got into a fight.

“I embrace it. I love myself.”

Which is, if anything, the most important message any Body Issue can impart.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.