Fitness Culture
The term is in fact used both
ROBERTA SASSATELLI
Università di Milan, Italy
In contemporary western societies, the “fit body”
has replaced body decoration as a potent symbol
of status and character, both for men and women.
Fitness gyms and health centers have become
highly visible as the sites where such a body is
produced. Fitness gyms are a special breed of
gyms: They are typically unisex, noncompetitive
environments aimed at providing recreational
exercise to boost physical form and well-being
(Sassatelli, 2010). Fitness gyms are at the core of a
much broader fitness culture, comprising a variety
of commodities: Newsstands are full of maga-
zines on physical exercise, health, and beauty,
which promote increasingly nuanced visions of
the “fit body” and offer advice about exercises
and diet that may help getting it; bookshops have
an increasingly large and varied collection of
exercise manuals; fitness festivals are increasingly
getting media coverage and contribute to the
professionalization of trainers. Blending pop cul-
ture, dance, and physical education and initially
reserved for women, fitness culture has moved
away from body-building (Klein, 1993; Lowe,
1998) depoliticizing recreational gymnastics
(Park, 1994; Vigarello, 1978). If recreational and
sporting physical activities had previously been
connected with social values like faith in progress
or loyalty to a nation, personal motivations have
now become the only factor. Targeted at paying
customers who can always decide they no longer
have any need or desire of the gym, fitness is
presented as an expression of the individual’s will.
Today’s gyms have at least three distinctive
characteristics (Sassatelli, 2010). In the first place,
they are increasingly truly integrated centers for
physical exercise. Second, the reference to the
variety of individual needs and the variety of
exercise techniques available does not imply the
absence of a minimum common denominator,
which is embodied instead in the dual meaning
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer and Chris Rojek.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosf083.pub2
of the term fitness.
for training in the gym (“keeping fit”) and for
the physical state that this training is intended
to produce (“being fit, in form”). Finally, the
pleasantness of physical activity is presented as
a fundamental aspect of fitness: Rather than on
exertion and physical effort, the accent is placed
on pleasure and satisfaction. Typically located in
urban contexts, and key institutions of an increas-
ingly global consumer culture, fitness gyms are a
special breed of leisure institutions. Fitness gyms
are different from social clubs – both working
class and upper class – in that a set of specific tasks
are to be carried out, with sociability being either
a by product or a facilitator of those tasks. Fitness
gyms are best understood under the banner
of “rational recreation” – recreational activities
should be morally uplifting for the participant,
good for his or her body, and have positive ben-
efits for the wider society. Different from more
informal, spontaneous forms of leisure, or with
subcultures of commodity appropriation, they
appear, at least at first glance, functional to social
order and dominant, commercial classifications,
rather than “antistructural” or “subversive.”
Fitness culture has attracted contrasting diag-
noses from within a host of disciplines, often
corresponding to disciplinary specializations in
the study of sport and physical activity at large.
Physical education, medical practice, and, to
some extent, even leisure studies have typically
played a celebratory tune, stressing the physical
benefits of the fitness workout, its emancipation
potential, and even its psychological paybacks.
On the contrary, within sociology and gender
studies there has been a tendency to expose the
fitness boom, stressing its commercial nature and
its disciplinary functions, showing that it may
sustain consumer dissatisfaction and frustration
(Frow and McGillivray, 2005). This is especially
so as related to gender identities, with aerobics in
particular being considered as yet another prac-
tice of beautification which subjugates women
to hegemonic and male-dominated views of
female subjectivity (Dinnerstein and Weitz, 1998;
Maguire and Mansfield, 1998; Morse, 1987/1988).
2 F ITNESS C ULTURE
Fitness thus appears as the illusory and nar-
cissistic response to a heavily standardized and
profit-seeking industry and the perpetuation of
heavily gender-biased images of the body, with
participants being asked to joyfully take responsi-
bility for their bodies and to invest in body main-
tenance in order to perform culturally appropriate
self-presentation (Bordo, 1993; White, Young,
and Gillett, 1995). A similar reading does not
account for the specificity of gym practices with
respect to other forms of body transformation,
with fitness being grouped together with arguably
quite different techniques, such as plastic surgery.
Highlighting the corrosion of character in an era
of obsessive self-presentation, this view contrasts
markedly with fitness discourse, according to
which fitness demonstrates character. Expert fit-
ness discourse is closer to another set of theories
which have been drawn upon to understand the
fitness boom. They offer a more positive view of
individualization and revolve around the notion
of “body projects,” the idea that in late modernity
the self becomes a reflexive and secular project
which works on ever refined levels of body
presentation (Giddens, 1991). These views are
further sociologically qualified, and made more
critical, by relating reflexive body projects to the
particular self-presentation needs of the new mid-
dle class, which competes in job and relationship
markets where high levels of “physical capital” are
required (Bourdieu, 1978; Featherstone, 1982).
Following this line of thought, fitness culture has
been seen either as a demand-side phenomenon
of body transformation (Glassner, 1992) or a
supply-side phenomenon of commercialization
(Smith Maguire, 2007) and either traced back to
the late modern subject and its new middle-class
incarnations, or conceived as a leisure industry,
the mirror of mounting commoditization with
the ensuing individualization of social problems
such as obesity. From another angle, coming from
postfeminist views and ethnographic approaches,
a number of studies have highlighted the cre-
ative role of the situated meaningful practices of
fitness fans.
Fieldwork research which focuses on partic-
ipants’ meanings has proved useful in showing
that gym-going is not driven by a single motive,
static across gym careers and uniform across
participants, and that body ideals and hegemonic
gender views are negotiated rather than simply
taken up by fitness participants (Crossley, 2006;
Leeds Creig and Liberti, 2007; Lloyd, 1996;
Gimlin, 2002; Markula, 1995; Sassatelli, 1999,
2003). While motivational narratives for joining
a gym may indeed mirror broad commercial
injunctions about perfection and beauty, motives
for continuing to go are much more varied, and
stress sociability and intrinsic rewards such as
satisfaction for training achievement. These stud-
ies show that fitness fans may appropriate gym
practices in subversive ways. They may effectively
use gym practices as a coping mechanism to face
body shortcomings and develop self-confidence.
They may also actively contribute, with their
requests and participation, to the development
of fitness culture in a continuous interface with,
in particular, professional fitness trainers. Still,
as a culturally prized practice, fitness is often
framed as a response to collective issues such
as poor health, obesity, or aging bodies, while
as a fundamentally individualized consumer
culture promoted by profit-seeking commercial
institutions it may not help us to ask the cru-
cial questions. This seems to require a critical
perspective on rationalized, urban living, com-
mercial relations, and fitness activities that goes
beyond the promotional sirens portraying fitness
training inside a gym as a quick fix solution for
body and soul.
SEE ALSO: Body and Society; Exercise and
Fitness; Health and Sport; Sport and the Body;
Sports and Culture
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