During the 1920s and 1930s, a new male body image was presented and promoted in the Iranian media. Iranian men had to become broad of shoulder and chest, ruddy of face, with an erect posture and bulging arm and leg muscles. This new preoccupation with the beautiful male body was part of a new discourse on physical culture and education and their benefits. My paper examines how the new male body image was used to advocate sport, scouting and soldiering during Reza Shah's reign, and how these activities aimed to preserve the power of the Shah and the ruling elite. It uses articles from the semi-official daily Ettela’at as its main source, since this was one of the main sites in which discussions of the new male body took place. The promotion of modern sports, including mandatory physical education in schools and the establishment of the Iranian Boy Scout Movement, as well as the introduction of compulsory military service in Iran were meant to create young men with certain physical traits, but no less important – with certain character traits. Sport, scouting and soldiering were believed to be cultivating loyalty and obedience, character traits highly valued by Reza Shah and his government. The gradual opening of institutes of modern education to somewhat wider segments of Iranian society made the cultivation of loyalty and obedience critical for the regime. Whereas mass education was one of the government's main goals, a large body of well-educated - and possibly politically aware and militarily trained - young men might have posed a challenge to the regime and the ruling elite. Using sport, scouting and military service to create new male citizens who were not only strong but also loyal aimed to avert this threat. Whereas sport and scouting benefitted mostly boys and young men of wealthy families, military service was supposed to benefit men of all echelons of society. However, it mostly remained the lot of the poor. Evading service was relatively easy for the wealthy, and the maltreatment of rank-and-file soldiers as well as the army's reputation for corruption further contributed to educated Iranians' aversion to join its ranks. Thus, despite state propaganda, conscription, and the militarism of Reza Shah’s regime, military service did not become a requirement of Iranian hegemonic masculinity. Put differently, one did not have to become a soldier in order to become a proper Iranian citizen.