ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on cultural discourses as potential pathways for raising cultural awareness concerning cultural identities and exercise behavior. It exemplifies CSP tenets through discussion of the often taken-for-granted ways that women's bodies and exercise are "constructed" and "represented" in fitness discourse, and why such constructions/representations can be problematic for exercise and fitness identities, with behavioral implications. Researchers in sport and exercise psychology and sport sociology have drawn upon the key social constructionist tenets concerning the role discourse in the construction of self-identity and behavior outlined earlier to problematize the notion that "thin is fit and healthy". The chapter concludes by summarizing key points from cultural sport psychology for practitioners to consider, as opposed to definitively follow, when seeking to raise cultural awareness and create opportunities for individuals as cultural beings in physical activity contexts.
