Table Of ContentThe Global Gym
Global Culture and Sport Series
Series Editors: Stephen Wagg and David Andrews
Titles include:
Mahfoud Amara
SPORT, POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN THE ARAB WORLD
Jesper Andreasson and Thomas Johansson
THE GLOBAL GYM
Gender, Health and Pedagogies
Aaron Beacom
INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND THE OLYMPIC MOVEMENT
The New Mediators
Mike Dennis and Jonathan Grix (editors)
SPORT UNDER COMMUNISM
Behind the East German ‘Miracle’
John Harris
RUGBY UNION AND GLOBALIZATION
An Odd-Shaped World
Graeme Hayes and John Karamichas (editors)
THE OLYMPICS, MEGA-EVENTS AND CIVIL SOCIETIES GLOBALIZATION,
ENVIRONMENT, RESISTANCE
John Karamichas
THE OLYMPIC GAMES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Jonathan Long and Karl Spracklen (editors)
SPORT AND CHALLENGES TO RACISM
Roger Levermore and Aaron Beacom (editors)
SPORT AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Pirkko Markula (editor)
OLYMPIC WOMEN AND THE MEDIA INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Peter Millward
THE GLOBAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Transnational Networks, Social Movements and Sport in the New Media Age
Nico Schulenkorf and Daryl Adair (editors)
GLOBAL SPORT-FOR-DEVELOPMENT
Critical Perspectives
Global Culture and Sport Series
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–57818–0 (Hardback)
978–0–230–57819–7 (Paperback)
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG216XS, England
The Global Gym
Gender, Health and Pedagogies
Jesper A ndreasson
Linnaeus University, Sweden
and
Thomas J ohansson
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
© Jesper Andreasson and Thomas Johansson 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-34661-2
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries
ISBN 978-1-349-46704-4 ISBN 978-1-137-34662-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137346629
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Contents
Series Editors’ Preface v i
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Historical and Contemporary Perspectives 1 7
3 Becoming a Fitness Professional 40
4 Learning Bodily Sensations – Getting the Pump 6 5
5 Gender and Fitness in the Global Blogosphere 8 6
6 Beauty, Health and Doping Trajectories 110
7 Healthy and Heavenly Bodies? 133
8 Conclusions 1 56
Appendix: Method and Methodology 168
Notes 176
References 177
Index 1 91
v
Series Editors’ Preface
The ongoing success of this series reflects the growing global preoc-
cupation with sport – more people than ever before are playing sport,
watching it, talking about it, wishing to be associated with it, and
analysing it from various standpoints. Part of that broad phenom-
enon has been the growth of exercise and fitness culture and, out
of the conviction that an understanding of other aspects of phys-
ical culture enhances our understanding of sport, we are happy to
welcome this excellent book to the series.
vi
Preface and Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a long process for both of us. In 1998,
Thomas Johansson published the first book to describe gym and
fitness culture in Sweden. Since then, the fitness industry in Sweden
has grown considerably, and attending a gym has become a common
activity among the Swedish population. His book was also heavily
cited and discussed.
At the beginning of the millennium, we worked together on a
research project on youth and sexuality in Sweden. We greatly
enjoyed working together, and a couple of years later, when Jesper
Andreasson started an ethnographic research project on gym and
fitness, we began to discuss a possible collaboration on an inter-
national book. We are very grateful that Andrew James at Palgrave
Macmillan commissioned our proposal for the book, and gave us the
opportunity to publish with Palgrave Macmillan.
Thanks to the following friends and scholars for reading and
commenting on our manuscript: Chris Haywood, Newcastle
University; Marcus Herz, University of Malmö; and Dimitris Liokaftos,
Goldsmiths University of London. Your readings and comments were
invaluable in helping us thoroughly rework the manuscript. Karen
Williams and Torun Elsrud have improved the book through their
language editing and good advice, which have been greatly appreci-
ated. Of course, we would also like to thank all the people working
in the gym and fitness culture who have contributed their stories,
thus making this book possible. Especially Tommy and Alexander,
who with their far-reaching network of contacts helped us find new
informants abroad and also served as gatekeepers, putting their own
reputations on the line to give us access to certain contexts.
Several of the chapters in the book build on articles already
published by the authors in journals including Sage Open , Journal of
Men’s Studies , Ethnography and E ducation , Sport, Education & Society ,
and S candinavian Sport Studies . The text has, however, been adapted
to suit the overall idea and framework of the book. As part of this
adaptation, the empirical material has been re-structured, and some-
times also re-analysed.
vii
1
Introduction
During the past four decades, gym and fitness facilities have emerged
as a global industry. According to the International Health, Racquet
& Sports Club Association (IHRSA), which is the trade association
serving the health and fitness club industry, this global “movement”
generated an estimated $75.7 billion in revenue in 2012, from more
than 153,000 health clubs serving 131.7 million members (IHRSA,
2013). By promoting active lifestyles, gym and fitness facilities are
presented worldwide as the solution to all sorts of public health
issues. The list of countries that have been affected by this develop-
ment is long. In Sweden, for example, where the sports movement
has traditionally assumed responsibility for voluntary physical
education for children and adolescents, gym and fitness training
activities have advanced to play a significant role in promoting
health and bodily exercise. In Great Britain, memberships in
private fitness clubs have risen steadily during recent decades, and
a public survey shows that at the beginning of 2000, 14 per cent
of the population attended a gym (Crossley, 2006). These figures
are well in line with studies of the health club population in the
United States as well (Sassatelli, 2011), and seem to be increasing
continuously, spurred especially by strong commercializing forces
(Smith Maguire, 2008). Furthermore, in recent years the fitness and
health club industry has expanded considerably in Asia and Latin
America. In the Asia-Pacific, Hong Kong alone had approximately
600 gym and fitness clubs in 2012, while China attracted nearly
3.5 million members to more than 2,600 facilities (IHRSA, 2013).
1
2 The Global Gym
Among global markets, Brazil is now second in size only to the
United States, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005) describes
employment in the “service-producing” industries focusing on the
general state of clients’ bodies as one of the fastest-growing indus-
tries in the labour market (George, 2008).
Consequently, at present people all around the world are using
gym and fitness facilities to exercise their bodies and achieve success
and health in everyday life. The physical activity pursued in these
facilities is relatively straightforward. Individuals are given access
to activities, machines, and equipment. With this access and the
support of employed experts, they can, or are supposed to, make
physiological improvements through incremental training in areas
such as cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, and muscle strength.
In this respect, gym participation is expected to have a direct impact
on individuals’ health and well-being. Much less clear, however, is
the pedagogical work that is expected to occur during this body-
work and in this particular cultural context. Indeed, recent research
depicts training sessions as pedagogical encounters and suggests that
fitness facilities play a significant role in teaching people how to live
their lives and understand themselves (Tinning, 2010). Yet we know
little about how these educational processes take place or about the
lasting consequences gym pedagogies may have for individuals’
health and identity construction outside the gym. One important
question we will raise and discuss in this book concerns whether this
trend of going to the gym merely can be seen as an unproblematic
way of achieving and learning about good health and constructing a
successful identity and body, or whether there are drawbacks associ-
ated with this cultural phenomenon, possibly in the form of negative
effects on people’s psychological health and self-perceptions.
The first wave of research on the gym and fitness culture began in
the early 1990s, and the focus was on bodies, gender, and identity
(Dutton, 1995; Johansson, 1996, 1998; Klein, 1993). Klein (1993), for
example, conducted a classical field study of bodybuilding in some
of the world’s best-known gyms. This study examines the creation
of bodybuilding as a subculture and the tensions between it and
mainstream societal norms and conventions. Since this study, the
gym and fitness industry has gone through a remarkable transforma-
tion process and turned into a mass-leisure activity (Sassatelli, 2011).
Today we see an increasing interest in research on the gym and
