Sociology and the Business of Fitness

Fit for Consumption Fitness today is not simply about health clubs and exercise classes, or meas- ures of body mass index and cardiovascular endurance. Fit for Consumption conceptualizes fitness as a field within which individuals and institutions may negotiate – if not altogether reconcile – the competing and often conflicting social demands made on the individual body that characterize our current era. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive socio-cultural and historical analysis of the current fitness culture. Intended for researchers and senior undergraduate and postgraduate students of sport, leisure, cultural studies, and the body, the book utilizes the US fitness field as a case study through which to explore the place of the body in contemporary consumer culture. Combining observations in health clubs, interviews with fitness producers and consumers, and a textual analysis of a wide variety of fitness media, Fit for Consumption provides an empirically grounded examination of one of the pressing theoretical questions of our time: how individuals learn to fit into consumer culture and the service economy; how our bodies and selves become “fit for consumption.” Jennifer Smith Maguire is Lecturer in Mass Communications in the Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, UK. Fit for Consumption Sociology and the business of fitness Jennifer Smith Maguire First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Jennifer Smith Maguire All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Maguire, Jennifer Smith. Fit for consumption : sociology and the business for fitness / Jennifer Smith Maguire. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–415–42180–5 (hardcover)—ISBN 978–0–415–42181–2 (softcover) 1. Physical fitness—Social aspects. 2. Physical fitness—Economic aspects. 3. Physical fitness—Health aspects. I. Title. GV342.27.M34 2007 613.7′1—dc22 2007006493 ISBN 0-203-94065-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 978–0–415–42181–2 (pbk) ISBN 978–0–415–42180–5 (hbk) ISBN 978–0–203–94065–5 (ebk) For Joe and Ruaidhri Contents Illustrations viii Acknowledgments ix 1 Making sense of fitness 1 2 The roots of fitness: physical culture and physical capital 23 3 Health clubs: the stratification of fitness sites 62 4 Fitness media: an education in the fitness lifestyle 106 5 Personal trainers: in the service of fitness 148 6 Lessons from the fitness field 190 Appendix: Suggested research tasks for students 209 Notes 213 Bibliography 220 Index 239 Illustrations Plates 3.1 Health club banner, New York 99 4.1 How to choose? Shoes in shop window, New York 111 4.2 Advice on the problematic self: fitness books 114 4.3 Fitness as panacea: health club windows 128 4.4 The promise of instant results: weight loss products 139 5.1 Services for sale: health club window ads 149 6.1 The means to many ends: health club ad 197 6.2 Fit and fat: street scene in Hong Kong 198 6.3 Health club, Singapore 202 6.4 Health club, Malaysia 203 6.5 Health club, Japan 203 6.6 Health club, Hong Kong 204 Figures 1.1 Mapping the fitness field 9 3.1 The field of choice for commercial health clubs 81 5.1 Personal trainers and the fitness field 186 Tables 3.1 The global commercial health club industry 74 4.1 Circulation of the four top-selling US fitness magazines, Fall 2001 108 4.2 Audience profile, 2005–6 109 Acknowledgments In January 1998, faced with the need to come up with a research paper topic for a graduate seminar on the urban symbolic economy, and – in a flourish of new year’s good intentions – having just joined a health club, I conducted a small-scale study of personal trainers. It proved to be a felicitous decision. That paper was the starting point of what would become both my doctoral dissertation at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and an ongoing body of research that has sustained my interest for nearly a decade and provided me with personal rewards as well as intellectual chal- lenges. Given its lengthy germination phase, the book bears traces of a long line of people who have taken the time and energy to read or listen, and offer comments and support. Those to thank include Sharon Zukin (who has unfailingly sent fitness- related clippings, and pushed me to make the most of this research), Stuart Ewen (a role model for engaged and engaging writing and teaching), and Patricia Clough (who never fails to remind me of the joys of a passionate engagement with theory), for their support and guidance as my doctoral dissertation committee members; the much-missed Bob Alford, for provid- ing in his Logics of Inquiry seminars an exceptional environment for think- ing and writing (with, among others, Randal Doane and Micki McGee); Jo Eberhard, Nadia Minian, Jack Levinson and especially Janet Mowat, for their peerless banter – intellectual and otherwise – in all manner of settings and, in the case of Janet, also for scouting around New York with a digital camera, looking for the perfect fitness scenes; Graham Knight at McMaster University, for his encouragement at every stage of my career; Marg McNeill at the University of Toronto, for the generous loan of her collection of personal trainer newsletters, magazines and manuals; and my friends and colleagues in the UK (especially Liz Pike, Louise Mansfield, Gavin Jack, x Acknowledgments Gillian Youngs, Eric Dunning, Tom Maguire, and the recently departed Anne Witz), for making my transatlantic transition a delightful one, and helping me to examine the research from new perspectives. Thanks are also due to those conference participants, reviewers, and students who have shared insightful remarks and constructive suggestions on earlier versions of the arguments contained here, which appeared in the Sociology of Sport Journal, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport and elsewhere, and at conferences and invited lectures in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, and around the UK, Canada and the US; and to the interview respondents, who were so generous with their time, experience and enthusiasm. My thanks to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for their generous support through doctoral fellowships; to SSHRC and McMaster University for postdoctoral research and teaching fellowships; and most recently to the Department of Media and Communi- cation at the University of Leicester for the grant of a study leave to facilitate the completion of the manuscript. Nothing so undermines one’s commitment to fitness and well-being as the final stages of completing a manuscript. I thus feel myself to be especially fortunate to have had the love and support of friends and family not only over the years, but most recently – thanks to the time zone differences and the pressures of writing – 24 hours a day. My mom especially deserves thanks for her patience with my far-flung life and inscrutable career choice, and her sense of humor during the awkward stages of writing. I am very sorry that my dad did not get to witness the end of my seemingly intermin- able student days, and advise me on all that’s come since. This book is dedicated to Joseph and Ruaidhri Maguire. Joe has put aside his own work and sleep on countless occasions to serve as research assistant, life support system, and confidence booster, as well as a tireless editor and sounding board. Rors, who has proven himself up to the unenviable task of living with two academics, has contributed much-needed levity in the fashion befitting a 2-year-old. This is for my boys. 1 Making sense of fitness What is fitness? From the point of view of sports medicine, fitness is a combination of strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular endurance; it can be quantified and evaluated relative to established benchmarks. However, asking people what they mean when they say, “I think I’m fit,” or “She doesn’t look fit,” often leads to a less straightforward definition. Certainly, fitness is experienced in part as physical ability, whether in the context of exercise or not – the strength to lift weights or groceries; the flexibility to perform a yoga posture or tie shoelaces; the endurance to power-walk or walk to work. But fitness is also associated with less tangible qualities: living up to expectations, or looking a certain way. For Donna, a 30-year-old journalist who is trying to exercise more in order to lose weight, fitness is a visual category: I have this perception of fit, that when someone’s fit it’s almost like they’re clean. And I don’t mean “dirty versus clean.” I mean clean, like put together. It’s almost like it’s an aesthetic.

Load more