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Suntanned beach-boy image is under threat

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Sydney

Ask the average Sydneysider to name an image that best captures the city's healthy, outdoorsy lifestyle and they'll probably nominate Sunbaker - a classic photograph by Max Dupain.

Shot in 1937, the simple black and white photograph depicts the glistening head, arms and shoulders of a young man lying on the sand, seemingly exhausted from swimming or surfing in the ocean.

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Apart from its disarming simplicity, the photograph seems to capture the ideal Aussie male physical type: young, fit and tanned.

'The sunbaker is completely relaxed and at one with the land,' according to the National Gallery of Australia, which bought the original photograph in 1976.

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Seven decades later the average body type on Sydney's beaches couldn't be more different from Max Dupain's athletic sunbaker. Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that an estimated 7.4 million Australians are now classified as overweight or obese.

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