ABSTRACT
Feminist research often condemns the fitness industry as a site for women’s oppression because it tends to reproduce the singular focus on the narrowly defined ‘body beautiful.’ Consequently, some of these researchers consider the fitness industry so thoroughly penetrated by negative commercialist ideologies that it is not worth further attention. At the same time, exercise and fitness are currently promoted as positive practices that contribute toward improved health. In westernized countries, the promotion of increased physical activity is a strong part of governmental health campaigns, but the responsibility of providing exercise services is usually left to the commercial fitness industry. This has further increased the commercial force of the fitness industry where promotion of health often blurs with aesthetics of the ideal body. As feminist researchers, we obviously need to continue to critique the discursive construction of the industry, but at the same time, there is no guarantee that such critique will actually change the way women’s fitness is understood and practiced or even decrease the popularity of the industry. To provide a more active feminist intervention, I aim to analyze, through Gilles Deleuze’s interpretation of Michel Foucault’s work, how to create more positive practices within this industry. In my research, I focus particularly on how positive change might take place through so-called mindful fitness forms that have become an increasingly popular part of this industry.
