ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political economy of fitness technologies, which is to say the relationships and interests that underpin industry activity. One of the more remarkable facets of the new fitness boom is the reimagining of video gaming – long decried as sedentary – as a healthy pastime. The chapter begins with a case study of Nintendo’s integration of health and fitness themes into its video game catalogue through the development of the company’s Wii console and, subsequently, the game Wii Fit. Nintendo indeed sought to appeal to ‘everyone’ by promoting a fit way of life. From there, the chapter outlines ‘lessons learned’ from this case study in assessing fitness technologies in general. These lessons pertain to: 1) the making of a fitness-technology ‘complex’; 2) the ‘for everyone’ discourse evident in technology production and marketing; 3) the human and non-human ‘actants’ integrated into fitness technologies; and 4) the structural and lived inequalities of manual technology production.
