ABSTRACT
An anti-fat ethic is pervasive in fi tness cultures, and perhaps most clearly evidenced in the fi tness gym that provides a cultural space in which people manage the twin corporeal purposes of (internal) health and (external) appearance. Contemporary self-consciousness about the body, and the signifi cance of corporeality in the production, reproduction and perception of the self is connected to long-term transformations in the economic, technological and political confi gurations in society that have contributed to the emergence of consumer culture (Burkitt 1999; Cole 1993, 2002; Shilling 1993; Turner 1996). The emphasis on sport, fi tness and leisure in late capitalism is marked by commercialization of the body linked to the shift from industrial capitalism toward a “postindustrial culture” founded on a global economy, service industries, advertising and consumerism (Turner 1996, 3). A focus on the body beautiful, denial of the aging/diseased body, and the value of physical fi tness and health, then, refl ects the increasing consumerist concern with the body.
