Health clubs and body politics: Aesthetics and the Quest for Physical Capital

Leisure Studies,Vol. 24, No. 2, 161–175, April 2005

ISSN 0261–4367 (print)/ISSN 1466–4496 (online)/05/020161–15 © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group LtdDOI: 10.1080/0261436042000300432

Health Clubs and Body Politics: Aesthetics and the Quest for Physical Capital

MATTHEW FREW and DAVID MCGILLIVRAYDivision of Media, Culture and Leisure Management, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, UK, ([email protected])Taylor and Francis LtdRLST100191.sgm10.1080/0261436042000300432Leisure Studies0261-4367 (print)/1466-4496 (online)Original Article2005Taylor & Francis Ltd00000000002005MatthewFrewDivision of Media, Culture and Leisure ManagementGlasgow Caledonian UniversityCowcaddens RoadGlasgowG4 [email protected]

(Received December 2003; revised August 2004; accepted September 2004)

ABSTRACT At present, the western world wrestles with an obesity epidemic whilst, paradoxically,maintaining a fascination for the aesthetic ideal body. With the Scottish health and fitness industryproviding the empirical backdrop, and drawing on the work of Bourdieu, this paper critically reflectsupon processes of embodied production and consumption and the quest for physical capital and itsreferential symbolism. Using a range of qualitative methods across three case study facilities it isargued that as consumers seek to attain desired forms of physical capital, health and fitness clubsserve both to capitalize on and perpetuate cycles of embodied dissatisfaction. Although willinglysubjecting their bodies to constant ocularcentric and objectifying processes, consumers areconstantly reminded of their failure to attain the physical capital they desire. These processes notonly mirror modern consumerism but also highlight a process of self-imposed domination. Withexternal medical and media discourses exerting persistent pressure on the embodied state, desire forphysical capital produces a self-legitimating and regulatory regime perpetrated upon the self withinthe internal environment of the health and fitness club. Therefore, as a venue for playing out aestheticpolitics, health and fitness club spaces are anything but healthy as they oil the desire and dreamscapeof physical capital, maintaining an aesthetic masochism and thus keeping the treadmills literally andeconomically turning.

Introduction

In recent years, the associated health phenomenon of body management and itsaesthetic construction has been matched by a growth in techno-dependency (Frewand McGillivray, 2002) and unheralded levels of reported obesity across the west-ern world (Grundy, 1998). For many, the modern world has become one of fast-food indulgence (Campbell, 2000; Lawson, 2000), leisure passivity and depen-dence upon labour saving technologies that afford levels of convenience unheardof in previous generations (Mintel, 2001).

The response of the contemporary leisure environment has been an exponentialgrowth in the health and fitness sector (Hickman, 2003) focused on cardio-vascularand resistance-based training (Mintel, 1998). Within the UK alone, the number ofhealth and fitness clubs has expanded by almost a quarter within the last decade,and these clubs now cater for a membership of 8.6 million, generating an estimated

162 M. Frew and D. McGillivray

£1.25 billion annually for the UK economy (Atkins, 2001; Hickman, 2003; Mintel,2003). Even so, this expansion pales into insignificance when compared with theUS, where seven out of 10 people are, or have been, members of health and fitnessclubs (Abrahams, 2001). In both countries the health and fitness industry hasexpanded to target and service a core market of healthy and aesthetically consciousconsumers. However, this paper focuses on the contested nature of the health andfitness terrain as it bridges the gap between the desire for a healthy and attractivebody and the allure of modern ease, convenience and instant gratification. Further-more, with attrition rates of up to 80% being reported across the industry (Atkins,2001), its raison d’etre remains open to question, especially as evidence of signif-icant public health improvements emanating from the growth in the industryremain scant. In a world of consumer consciousness it is worth considering thesustainability of an industry that appears to continually dissatisfy its consumers’desires.

In critically evaluating these paradoxes, the paper takes as its theoretical base thework of Pierre Bourdieu and his writings on the incorporated or ‘physical’ form ofcapital (Bourdieu, 1980, 1985, 1998). Bourdieu illustrates how cultural goods,services and, in this instance, embodied states are reproduced as tradable assetscarrying symbolic value within modern consumer markets (Bourdieu, 1984; Lee,1993). For definitional clarity it is argued that, in the social space of the health andfitness club, the ‘toned, ordered and visible body’ is the desired form of physicalcapital. In this context, the ‘taut’ and ‘toned’ body represents the:

…‘good body’ and the good body is indicative of the subjection of self to regimes of disci-pline…to practice healthy behaviour is to improve one’s ‘physical capital’ (Bourdieu, 1984)and therefore enhance one’s social and moral worth. (Hughes, 2000: 21)

It will be argued that, in the early 21st century, the health and fitness club is theprincipal space where the quest for, and attainment of, physical capital takes place.It operates as a space where the promotion of a particular aesthetic comes togetherwith regimented body work (Shilling, 1993; Hancock and Tyler, 2000) to form amoral reminder of the need for self-regulation.

Bourdieu and physical capital

The introductory comments allude to the work of Pierre Bourdieu and, in particu-lar, his discussion of capital(s). In this section, the appropriateness of this theoret-ical stance is clarified before the key Bourdieusian concepts employed thereafterare embedded in the health and fitness context. First, it is necessary to explainBourdieu’s use of the term capital, especially the way in which the accumulationof its physical and symbolic derivative helps to differentiate social groups. ForBourdieu, various cultural fields (e.g. art, television and sport) provided a richtapestry from which to explore the consumption patterns of various class group-ings and to ascertain how these were constructed and reproduced (Lee, 1993). Atthe heart of these investigations was the relationship between structuringprocesses, represented in the durable dispositions of habitus (e.g. socio-economicstatus) and the ability of agents to exercise strategies that could alter their culturaltrajectories.

Health Clubs and Body Politics 163

For this paper, the health and fitness club represents a contested sub-culturalfield (of sport and recreation) where the possession of physical capital is traded fordistinction (Bourdieu, 1984). As discussed, the principal capital of interest here isthe incorporated or embodied form, namely, ‘physical capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986;Calhoun, 1995; Wacquant, 1998). This form of capital is increasingly importantgiven a prevailing aestheticization of everyday life (Featherstone, 1991; Rojek,1995), whereby visual, or ocularcentric, cultures exert more influence across vari-ous social spaces (see Virilio, 2002). Since the publication of Featherstone’s(1991) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism and Featherstone et al.’s (1991) TheBody: Social Process and Cultural Theory, numerous investigations have focusedon the benefits of the capital attained from gaining a fit and taut looking body(Bordo, 1993; Shilling, 1993; Tyler and Taylor, 1998; Sassatelli, 1999; Dale, 2001;Philips and Drummond, 2001).

Likewise, within the context of the health and fitness club, embodied forms ofphysical capital correspond well with Featherstone’s (1991) depiction of classicaland carnival bodies. The carnival body is portrayed as the grotesque product of thecopious consumption of fattening food and intoxicating drink. As an embodiedstate, lacking discipline and revelling in carnivalesque spaces (e.g. pubs, night-clubs, fast food outlets and restaurants), this body mirrors the negative representa-tion of fat and flaccidity targeted within health and fitness club environments. Incontrast, its ‘other’, the classical body, is promoted as the ideal and associated withsymmetrical beauty. This is the aspirational and ascetic body, famously illustratedby Michelangelo’s David and promoted, not only within the health and fitness clubindustry, but mediated across western cultures (Bordo, 1993; Grundy, 1998).

The quest for the physical capital of the classical body is increasingly importantfor enhanced work opportunities and social and sexual success (see Trethewey,1999; Hancock and Tyler, 2000; Warhurst et al, 2001). Given this, it is understand-able that the embodied state is now under a permanent social gaze, objectifiedthrough a host of mediums that drive bodily dissatisfaction and, consequentially,the desire for physical capital. In essence, the body has become a mainstreamcommodity (Miles, 2001).

However, the accrual of physical capital only has value within a wider symboliceconomy. If specific elements of physical capital (e.g. possessing a six-pack or bigbiceps) are not recognized and given value by others, then it is not a tradable assetin the positional economy (Hirsch, 1978). The key point about trading in the posi-tional economy is that it is always relational to the consumption patterns of others(Lee 1993). As the forthcoming presentation of results illustrates, achieving thehonour of symbolic capital (Fowler, 2000) is as crucial within the health and fitnessclub context as its physical capital counterpart.

Although proposing that physical capital is ever more valuable in a visuallyconscious global culture, this does not mean that its possession is either distributedequally or unaffected by power relations. Instead, it is proposed that those possess-ing the appropriate physical capital seek distinction from others, subordinating andsymbolically dominating those unable to attain such capital within the field(Bourdieu, 1984; Fowler 2000). In the health and fitness club, this is often achievedthrough displaying physical capital superiority (e.g. through wearing crop tops).For Bourdieu, this contest of capitals can also be related to the struggle between


different class fractions. He has argued that the manual working classes exhibitdifferent attitudes to the body to those of the middle classes (see Jarvie andMcGuire, 1994). Whereas the former react with strangeness (Flick, 1999) to thehealth and fitness industry, the middle classes tend to embrace it more readily, thusproducing more individuals seeking to achieve a fit, athletic body, which demon-strates qualities associated with investment, restraint and deferred gratification.Before exploring such processes, it is necessary to outline the set of research instru-ments employed in the empirical investigations conducted across a number ofhealth and fitness clubs in Scotland.

Methods

Bourdieu championed the use of a variety of research methods in his own empiricalinvestigations. He was particularly critical of theorizing theoreticians or ‘untheo-retical empiricism’ and ‘unempirical conceptualizations’ for their abstraction, andsought to challenge the dualism between theory and empirical work (Bourdieuquoted in Honneth et al, 1986: 39):

In utilizing a range of quantitative as well as qualitative research methods, Bourdieu also chal-lenges the crude formulations found in objectivity and subjectivity research debates. (Jarvieand McGuire, 1994: 185)

Hence, Bourdieu was interested in how social practices operate and how they actas processes through which individuals live out their daily lives. Empirically, hewas particularly concerned with exploring how embodied actions structure how anindividual thinks, feels and acts, how they become engrained in an individual’spsyche so that they act unconsciously and intuitively. In doing so, he tried to avoidattributing actions to either pole of fixed determinism or flexible elasticity(Jenkins, 2002).

The study from which this paper originates engaged with these criticisms andencompassed extensive fieldwork with three health and fitness clubs located indifferent locales across central Scotland from late 2000 to mid-2001. In order toreflect the range and quality of provision, organizational selection was premisedupon the variables of size, location and market focus.

The first organization, Esporta, represented an established multinational, uppermarket brand in a suburban location and focused on older professional groups. Thesecond organization, The Edge, formed part of a health and fitness chain ofnational scope with a preference for business and retail park locations, targetingyoung professionals and business workforces. The final organization, EnergyZone, represented a single entrepreneurial venture, located in a small town andfocused on the de-conditioned market of its local catchment area. Coupled withthese variables, geodemographic (Sleight, 1997) information from organizationaldatabases revealed membership profiles that cut across the spectrum of age,gender, economic and occupational status. This enhanced the view that organiza-tional selection provided a fair reflection of the growing health and fitness sectorand its consumers (Mintel, 1998; 2001).

Within each organization, several innovative research methods were accommo-dated in the furtherance of this project, targeted at both the producers of the health


and fitness club experience (i.e. staff) and its consumers (i.e. health and fitness clubmembers). Firstly, a site visit was arranged to each club to conduct what Flick(1999) terms a textual analysis. Through digital imaging and observational notes,the interior of each club was recorded. The intention was to analyse both formaland informal evidence of the vision and marketing strategy each organizationpromoted. Formal evidence refers to those organizational elements directed toattract potential members and included membership campaigns, promotionalpacks, posters, flyers and merchandizing. Informal evidence refers to those taken-for-granted organizational elements, including décor, sound and vision, physicallayout, equipment, service provision (e.g. beauty therapy, body combat or spinclasses) and the embodied state of staff. The rationale here was that such elementsform a text of an organization that promote associations that are aesthetic, embod-ied and provide distinction for members.

The second phase of research focused upon the management and operationaldelivery of health and fitness club services. In-depth interviews were conductedwith facility managers and those staff responsible for the delivery of personal train-ing and class-based services. For the management interviews, the themes exploredwere industrial trends in the health and fitness industry, the organization’s strategicvision, an analysis of consumer needs and staffing practices. At the operational, or‘service interface’ level, a total of six interviews were conducted with staff respon-sible for the delivery of personal training and class based services. Here, interviewthemes focused upon daily operational procedures, including induction,programme design and delivery, personal history and attraction to the health andfitness industry, experience of consumer aspirations, application and levels ofparticipation.

The third and final phase of fieldwork investigations was conducted withconsumers drawn from each health and fitness club. First, focus group interviews(four to six members) were conducted with members from each health and fitnessclub. Although focus groups were composed of self-selecting members, care wastaken to ensure each group provided a gender balance and age range representativeof the membership base of each organization. It was not possible, at this stage, toaccount for the motivations of the attendees, nor how representative these might beof the organizations themselves. To stimulate discussion, a 6-minute video clip wasplayed. This was a montage clip edited from various documentaries and films andrepresented an array of different body shapes. In placing body types along a soma-totype spectrum (Burke and Deakin, 1994) and drawing parallels from those bodytypes presented in the video, respondents identified and assembled an identikit orjigsaw body to represent their ideal body shape. This facilitated the ensuing discus-sion which reflected upon respondents’ influences, attitudes, perceptions and aspi-rations towards such body images and personal strategies for its attainment andmaintenance.

A range of secondary sources also contributed to the study, including represen-tations of idealized bodies found in the health and fitness trade press. Theseapproaches build on the work undertaken by Sassatelli (1999) of the health andfitness club industry in Italy and other studies that have considered body image inthe context of the health and fitness industry (e.g. Grogan, 1999; Monaghan, 1999,2001).


Results

The forthcoming results are drawn primarily from the qualitative research enqui-ries conducted. To maintain confidentiality, the participants cited in discussionshave been assigned pseudonyms. Results are presented in three distinct sections.The first highlights how the desire for the attainment of physical capital isconstantly open to objectification in the health and fitness club. Of particular inter-est is how individuals appear to willingly place themselves in a space where desirefor physical capital, simultaneously, involves an open and constant embodiedpenance.

The second section presents results indicative of the quest for physical capital asone of subtle rationalization, whereby mediatized celebrity bodies become a soughtafter accessory. It also explores how (and why) factors internal (the marketing ofthese spaces) and external (the role of the mass media) to the health and fitness indus-try fuel this process. The final section reflects upon the desire for physical capitaland how it is continually frustrated by incongruous lifestyle demands, technologiesand temptations. It draws on the voices of health and fitness club consumers to illus-trate how they invariably fail to appreciate, or to practice, the stoicism required toachieve their dreamscape desires. Caught in a theoretical and practical vacuum,consumer desire for physical capital and its symbolic power becomes a body politicplayed out on the never-ending treadmills of the health and fitness club.

Desiring capital: open referential gazing

The health and fitness club is a space where physical capital is not only constructedand celebrated but also undergoes a willing ocular consumption (Featherstone,1991). In this space, gazing upon the body, scanning its taut curves and contours,is an accepted practice. For those in possession of the appropriate physical capital,such gazing (by one’s self, at one’s self and at others) is openly accepted and evencelebrated – in an apparently asexualized and agendered way. The comments of thefollowing personal trainers provide an illustration of this referential gazing:

Everybody looks at everybody in a gym. You compare – it’s nothing unusual. (Callum,personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

We’re in the body business. You go into a gym you check people out and likewise. Hey, thereare mirrors everywhere and nobody can tell me they don’t look. It’s no big deal. (Nick,personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

This nonchalant ocularcentrism was identified across all of the health and fitnessclubs by staff and consumers alike. However, bodies were also discursivelycompared and contrasted with a clear focus on the objectification of particularbody parts; the ‘great legs’, ‘what about his pecs’, ‘have you seen her abs’, ‘nowthat’s a butt’. The following two health and fitness clubs members attest to thispenchant for comparison as an essential element of the health and fitness clubexperience:

You’re always looking. As soon as you’ve got a flat stomach you see someone else and saythey are better than me. Then you think I want to look like that. (Linda, health and fitness clubmember, focus group, May 2000)


I think it gives you a buzz…When you see a good build it can drive you on. (Mark, health andfitness club member, focus group, May 2000)

This process of bodily comparison and objectification is fuelled and legitimatedthrough medical discourses that now extend into many areas of life (Hughes,2000), including the health and fitness club. This medicalization was evidentwithin each of the selected clubs, where consumers undergo processes of objecti-fication which begin with the ‘basic induction’, including body measurementprocedures such as blood pressure, weight, flexibility, dynamic strength and bodyfat percentages. It is through such bodily objectification that consumers formallycountenance their level (or lack) of physical capital:

Fitness testing is a standard procedure throughout the industry. Every customer goes throughone when they come for an induction. (Kevin, health and fitness club owner, interview, April2000)

Our fitness profiling keeps them (customers) focused. It gives them a start point, helps themset personal goals that they can see on paper. (Tony, assistant manager, interview, March2000)

Moreover, through periodic testing or personal fitness programming, which deter-mine ‘customer progress’, objectification becomes a central tenet of the health andfitness club environment. The length of cardio-vascular activity, class participa-tion, exercise forms and structure, number of sets, repetitions and weight all add tothe objective evidence of a customer’s ‘commitment to their goals’. According tothe health and fitness clubs this is a wholly positive process, part of a qualityservice that is often separately priced:

Personal training services are another service we offer. They are usually one to one but morein-depth…testing more, working on diet more and fine-tuning programmes – well worth it.(Callum, personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

Our membership is a one-off payment, which gets you the gym, spin and any other class weoffer. The only difference is personal training sessions where you have to pay a fee usually bythe hour. It’s not for everyone but they get results and that’s why people want them. (Kevin,health and fitness club owner, interview, April 2000)

There’s no two ways about it, trainers are expensive but they really kick your butt. If you reallywant to make a go of it you get the trainer. (Claire, health and fitness club member, focusgroup, May 2000)

In addition, consumers are surrounded by an environment that constantly promotesthe physical capital of the youthful, aesthetic, trim and taut body. From the pointof entry, consumers (or potential consumers) are perpetually subjected to theimages of MTV or Cardio-Theatre screens, airbrushed posters of glistening bodiesand staff, be they at reception, personal trainers or class instructors. Across thehealth and fitness industry, the design and maintenance of such environments iscentral to membership sales and the cycle of member adherence and attrition(Grantham et al., 1998). Staff actively promote such body images so that, in thehealth and fitness club, consumers are ever conscious of the flaws of their embod-ied state:

I mean I never actually say to them ‘you’re fat’ but I make sure they (customers) know theyare. You can’t hide the folds. (Callum, personal trainer, interview, May 2000)


They know they’re fat…they come here to change, that’s why they come. (Samantha, personaltrainer, interview, April 2000)

Listen, by the time I’m finished with them (at induction) they’re whimpering to join-up. Youget them to focus on how they look and how long it took to get that way. Then you put it tothem how they’ll look in six months if they don’t do something now. (Hazel, personal trainer,interview, March 2000)

Moreover, in a similar manner to flight attendants (Tyler and Abbott, 1998: 441),the embodied labour (Warhurst et al., 2000; Hancock and Tyler, 2000) of healthand fitness club staff appears to be a key reference point for consumers. Staff werefully aware that their physical capital acted as an marketing mechanism as well asan aspirational text:

I’ve had guys say, ‘I want that six pack. I want to look like you’. It happens all the time. (Nick,personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

I know they (customers) look at me. They see the body and want it and so it should be. If youwant to motivate them you’ve got to look the part. Let’s face it, it’s a selling point. (Hazel,personal trainer, interview, March 2000)

As these working bodies reflected forms of physical capital idealized in the classi-cal aesthetic (Featherstone, 1991) they were deemed essential for motivatingconsumers. However, although such embodied states appear to carry a performa-tive power (Lyotard, 1984; Bourdieu, 2000), altering the perceptions or behaviourof consumer groups, some of the empirical evidence accrued suggests that thephysical capital of staff might, paradoxically, represent a barrier to consumers.Aspiring to ‘be’ the personal trainer may merely emphasize the unrealizable expec-tations of individuals ensnared by the magnetism of consumer capitalism.

Rationalizing the physical capital of mediatized bodies

The preceding results illustrate awareness amongst providers and users of thedesirability of physical capital and its potential to provide distinction within arange of fields. They also illustrate how individuals become attuned to the valueascribed to particular bodily segments. In other words, individual body partscontain their own ‘capital’, which is valued symbolically in both the production(e.g. work) and consumption (e.g. nightlife) fields. This relates to the promotion ofthe ‘ideal’, classical body by media celebrities in television, music and lifestylemagazines. The symmetry and tone of what Featherstone (1991) calls the classicalshape, was clearly an aspiration for health and fitness club members, evidenced bythe following comments:

The body must be in proportion otherwise it just doesn’t look right. (Claire, health and fitnessclub member, interview, May 2000)

The proportionate body: the body has to fit together. (Susan, health and fitness club member,interview, April 2000)

Flatter stomach and thinner all round. (Carol, health and fitness club member, focus group,April 2000)

Get rid of my pot belly. (John, health and fitness club member, focus group, May 2000)

Broader shoulders so clothes look better on me. (Mark, health and fitness club member, focusgroup, May 2000)


The idea of the toned, taut and proportionate body, represented by the mesomor-phic shape (Burke and Deakin, 1994), most closely reflects the idealized image,especially for men. In contrast, the endomorphic shape is deemed overweight, outof proportion and least desirable. This was emphasized within the consumer focusgroups, where the body identikits chosen reflected the aspirational associations ofthe classical (mesomorphic) body. Conveyed in various mediatized texts, it wasclear that health and fitness club consumers arrived with pre-defined notions ofidealized body shapes (and proportions). This is best illustrated by the followingcomments from personal trainers and consumers alike:

Everyone has the idea looking for the Madonna arms or Jennifer Lopez butt and thighs. (Nick,personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

Images are everywhere… they have an influence. That’s what brings a lot of them (customers)here. (Gillian, personal trainer, interview, March 2000)

I want to get rid of the belly and the love handles. The Brad Pitt abs that’s what I’m lookingfor and so do a lot of guys if they’re honest. (Ian, health and fitness club member, focus group,April 2000)

Well you see the folk in the magazines and the telly (TV). It’s natural to wonder if you couldlook like that. (Jim, personal trainer, interview, March 2000)

I’d go for the Jennifer Beals type of body. The legs and bum will do me. (Fiona, health andfitness club member, focus group, May 2000)

This suggests that it is not only the embodied physical capital of fellow users andstaff that operate as ever-present peripatetic mirrors from which others reflect upontheir bodies. The physical capital displayed in media representations also conveysidealized aesthetic attributes to the general population, often amplifying anxietiesabout body image in the process. The health and fitness club consumers at thecentre of this study were clearly susceptible to celebrity imagery, albeit they weresometimes oblivious to fact that behind the superficiality and glamour associatedwith celebrity bodies lurks the necessary evil of carnal body work. The finalsection presents results that relate to why participants consistently seem to fail toappreciate the frequency and intensity of body work necessary to attain that phys-ical capital which is the focus of their desires.

Dissatisfied desire: the non-capitalization of physical capital

Elsewhere, it has been argued that the health and fitness industry constructs desirefor a particular body aesthetic by titillating, moulding and shaping the desires ofindividual consumers (Frew and McGillivray, 2002). Following this logic, it wassuggested that, more often than not, these desires are left unfulfilled and remainconstantly in the future. Instead, health and fitness club consumers are caught in acontinual dissatisfaction of desire, which precludes them from attaining the bodilydreams sold to them by a host of social and cultural intermediaries. Staff wereparticularly aware of the dissatisfaction of desire within health and fitness clubs:

You see the guys with the pot bellies and they always tell you how much they want tight abs.But they never get it. (Samantha, personal trainer, interview, April 2000)

They just can’t commit. They want to look good but it’s too much time and effort. (Nick,personal trainer, interview, May 2000)


With the continual pressure to retain consumers, health and fitness club staff werefully aware of the contradictions between expressed consumer desire for physicalcapital and their inability to attain it. For example, several personal trainers talkedabout their consumers’ failure to distinguish between the aesthetic dream and therealities of body work:

Very few understand what’s involved. They’re not prepared to work at it. (Samantha, personaltrainer, interview, April 2000)

It hurts and they don’t like it. They are going to have to go through the pain bit if they want toget there. (Nick, personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

I keep telling them it’s not pain they feel it’s only discomfort. But they don’t want to hear that.They want the body but they just can’t handle what it takes to get it. (Hazel, personal trainer,interview, March 2000)

Although able to remedy this to an extent, personal trainers talked of their power-lessness against the inability of consumers to control their dietary and exerciseregimes. Investments in physical capital through ‘strict training’, advocated withinthe internal environment of the health and fitness club, tended to be undone due tocounterproductive behaviour in the external carnival sphere. The frustration overthis process is reflected in the following comments:

You need discipline to get in shape. It’s a life thing. Most people don’t have a clue. You couldbe in here for weeks before you actually see results. It’s a continuous thing, long term, but they(customers) want it there and then. (Nick, personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

Going to the gym is feel-good factor. They are more interested in being seen to be going thanactually doing anything. (Gillian, personal trainer, interview, March 2000)

It’s all about ‘I’ve just been to the gym’. They’ve only worked out for 15 minutes yet they’vebeen there an hour. (Callum, personal trainer, interview, May 2000)

They spend more time in the restaurant than in the gym. (Hazel, personal trainer, interview,March 2000)

I’ve seen them leave here after a hard session and go into the chip shop across the road. It’sdaft but what can you do? (Samantha, personal trainer, interview, April 2000)

From these results it appears that the health and fitness club industry occupies aunique position within the leisure industries. In this industry the final productdesired by the consumer (i.e. physical capital) is seldom achieved, yet consumersreturn again and again. The forthcoming discussion section explores why the battlefor physical capital continues to attract hordes of willing foot soldiers.

Discussion

The preceding presentation of results demonstrates that, for those in possession ofthe appropriate physical capital, the body acts as a consumption experience in itsown right. It represents an ‘embodied billboard’, as every curve tells a story, tanta-lizing the desires of fellow health and fitness club consumers. The body, endowedwith physical capital, becomes a living movie that conveys and plays on the hopesand dreams of many. Furthermore, this physical capital not only brings honour anddistinction (Bourdieu, 1984), but is itself also an ideal product invigorating andreinforcing modern consumer culture (Lee, 1993; Webb, et al., 2002).


However, the cycles of procedural objectification which take place within healthand fitness clubs also establish a panopticon (Foucault, 1977) process, wherebyindividual fitness checks and performance programmes become confessional andself-regulating technologies of the self (Foucault, 1986). By subjecting themselvesto the confessional objectification and priestly instruction of personal trainers, itappears that consumers have dedicated themselves to the ‘techniques of selfmastery’ (Moss, 1998: 3) advocated in the plethora of health and fitness parapher-nalia that abounds. So, although no doubt willingly entering the sub-cultural field(Bourdieu, 1985; 1993) of health and fitness to offer their bodies to the ocularcen-tric gaze, they do not display an unwavering commitment to the values and prac-tices of the field (what Bourdieu terms illusio). Consumers may be attracted by thephysical capital that the sub-cultural field of health and fitness offers but, betrayedby the indulgent lifestyles of their carnivalesque bodies, they have not yet fullyinternalized the rules of the game (Bourdieu and Eagleton, 1992). So, rather thanembody the disciplined stoicism required to attain physical capital and the virtuouspurity it conveys (Leichter, 1997), consumers are constantly and objectivelyreminded of the inappropriateness of their carnival bodies.

Moreover, as health and fitness club staff float past, consumers find themselvesgazing at the much sought after prize of physical capital. In this sense, the embod-ied labour (Warhurst et al., 2000; Hancock and Tyler, 2000) of health and fitnessclubs operates to accentuate consumer desire. Staff act as ‘a material expression’or ‘medium through which the (health and fitness club) is itself personified’ (Tylerand Abbott, 1998: 441). Their bodies are referential texts or marketing mediums tobe read by and influence consumers groups. They are the physical manifestationsof the idealized classical body (Featherstone, 1991), being fat free, toned and inproportion, qualities synonymous with purity and success (Bordo, 1993; Shilling,1993). Meantime, the fat and flaccid (carnival) body signifies weakness and lackof moral virtue, emphasizing the visible and literal ‘sins of the flesh’, which mustbe eliminated.

From the empirical enquiries conducted, it was evident that the classical bodyand the capital that it evokes was often an abstract hope, as opposed to an attainablereality for many health and fitness club consumers. This paradoxical situation isfurther problematized as other discourses extend into the sub-cultural field of healthand fitness. Just as the internal health and fitness environment legitimates proceduralobjectification under the guise of medicalization processes, so an expansionistglobal media has re-animated the quest for physical capital (Bourdieu, 1984, 1993).In these circumstances, desire for the classical form of physical capital becomes,crucially, a mediatized phenomenon, fuelled with associations of personal successand sexual prowess. ‘Celebrity bodies’ provide dreamworld associations (Rojek,1995), offering individuals levels of acceptance and recognition comparable withtheir mythical heroes. Television and cinema screens overflow with these fantasybodies, perfectly maintained whilst (apparently) enjoying the consumptive excessesof celebrity lifestyles. They give the impression that physiological truths can bereversed and the mandate for discipline can be rejected in favour of the mandatefor pleasure (Williams and Bendelow, 1998). In so doing, they earn (or ratheracquire) admiration for their beauty and success, cashing in their (often sculpted)physical capital chips for lucrative record deals, screen roles and endorsements.


Often, this media-generated imagery (e.g. Lara Croft) eliminates imperfection,brushing out unwanted flaccidity in favour of valuable firmness and tone. More-over, the demand for this idealized body has produced not just the body-double butalso the body-part double (e.g. Brad Pitt’s leg double for the movie Troy). As theresults of this study illustrate, in this rationalized process, individual body partscarry their own capital, as the body must be in proportion and befitting partici-pants’ celebrity idols. Both producers and consumers of the health and fitness clubexperience acknowledged the pervasive effect of celebrity bodies upon their prac-tices. For producers, this was apparent in their approach to membership marketing,class promotions and visual fixtures and fittings, such as Cardio-Theatres and‘plumbed in’ MTV. However, consumers were also more than willing to constructphysical capital in ‘Frankenstein’ fashion with aspirational body parts cut from thecarcasses of celebrity icons. With the saturation of mediatized celebrities the ideal-ized body of consumers becomes an abstract and rationalized collage that appearsto increasingly ‘buy into’ and accentuate the dreamworld associations of celebritybodies. More importantly, this pick-n-mix approach reveals a misunderstandingamong many consumers, namely, that physical capital is accruable without theneed for disciplined stoicism, sacrifice or denial. As discussed elsewhere (Frewand McGillivray, 2002), such a ‘knowledge gap’ between expectation and realitycreates a continuous cycle of dissatisfaction of desire for those seeking to attaintheir idealized body.

In the sub-cultural field of health and fitness, the quest for physical capital onlyprovides distinction for the few, whilst also serving as a perpetual reminder ofaesthetic frustration and the dissatisfaction of desire for the many. Rather thanproviding satisfaction for the aesthetic desires of consumers, many health andfitness clubs simply act to create and reinforce discontent. Formal processes ofobjectification and mediatized imagery, as well as the embodied labour of staff,often work to frustrate rather than enable the attainment of physical capital.

Ironically, there is a contradiction between the social status acquired by manyhealth and fitness club consumers and the achievement of their ‘dreams’ in aestheticterms. Ultimately, the excesses enjoyed in carnivalesque spheres are not conduciveto achieving the aesthetic perfection revered as a means to create distinction. Giventhe cutting comments of many of the personal trainers interviewed, it is clear thatdissatisfaction in the attainment of physical capital is bound to lifestyles lived in acarnivalesque culture of techno-dependency. This is all the more bizarre as consum-ers freely assert to a self-imposed embodied assault on their fat and flaccid state.They enter the health and fitness club conscious of (even as a sign of) their indulgentfailure, yet still clinging to the hope of attaining physical capital, its symbolic deriv-ative and the dreamscape distinction they believe it will bring.

These contradictions reflect the irrational outcomes of an obdurate belief inmodernist progress and emancipatory politics (Bauman, 1992). Modernist techno-logical ‘advances’ have generated a world of ease in which convenience is valuedover physicality and instantaneity replaces deferral (Virilio, 2002). This has leftthe atomized self unable to countenance denial, sacrifice, forfeit or discipline.The gloss and glamour of health and fitness clubs, fitted out (at great expense)with TV monitors, shiny resistance and cardio equipment, does not detract fromthe physiological reality that carnal body work is a necessary evil in the attain-


ment of the body beautiful. In order to achieve the classical body, a knowledge-able and consistent application is required; one that resists the temptations soreadily encountered in the world of the carnivalesque. In a Bourdieusian sense,the desire for physical capital demands an adjacent institutional capital (Bourdieu,1980; Jenkins, 2002); an embodied state lived both within the internal health andfitness club environment and the external social world. Surface appreciation ofphysical capital and its symbolic worship demands a substantive appreciation ofthe knowledge, level of effort and regime of discipline necessary if physical capi-tal is ever to be attained and, more importantly, maintained.

Conclusion

In this paper it has been argued that the health and fitness club represents a politicalspace, or sub-cultural field, within which a desired state of physical capital and itssymbolic derivative is sought. However, it was also suggested that, although thiscapital functions to provide its owner with distinction (Wacquant, 1995, 1998) italso perpetuates a continuous cycle of dissatisfaction.

Throughout the paper, health and fitness club consumers have been seen to be inpursuit of forms of physical capital that are increasingly mediated through iconiccelebrity bodies and the efforts of the health and fitness industry itself, each ofwhich helped form a legitimating network of objectification. These influencespermeate and resonate within the internal social space of health and fitness clubs.Consumers actively chose to place themselves in these spaces of aesthetic and ethi-cal-political regulation, spaces where the critical gaze was ever present and self-image under constant scrutiny. Like temples, the consumers in this study willinglyentered these health and fitness clubs keen to worship an aesthetic purity hoping toattain the robes of physical capital and its salvationary symbolism. However, withthe priestly pronouncements of personal trainers, objective attendance, testing, andprogrammes, they essentially subjected themselves to an endless embodiedpenance where every sin was laid bare.

In some respects the health and fitness club becomes a site of aesthetic masoch-ism as the experiences therein appear, ironically, anything but ‘healthy’. Thisprovides a challenge to the status of the health and fitness club as a neutral socialspace where (re)creative experiences are consumed openly and freely. Instead, ithas been argued that these spaces resemble factories of fear, where endomorphicfatness and flaccidity (celebrated in the carnivalesque sphere) are controlled andcontained in the quest for the more mesomorphic symmetrical and sculpted physi-cal capital of Michelangelo’s classical body. Moreover, as bodily dissatisfactionand its reciprocal cure are increasingly rationalized and segmented into specificbody parts that convey symbolic associations, embodied states spiral into infinitesubjective projects.

At the macro-level, it was argued that the physical capital sought in the healthand fitness club typifies the market cycles of modern consumerism. As consumerspursue physical capital they occupy the consumer role of pseudo-sovereignty,believing in the subjective attainment of capital, yet, naïve or ambivalent towardsthe mechanisms that drive and promote its consumption. The body beautifulbecomes a rationalized and idealized image that is constantly displayed but, even


for the few who attain it, an embodied state that is enjoyed ephemerally. Tantalizedby, and desiring physical capital and its dreamscape symbolism, consumers findthemselves caught in an aporia of capital. They become the modern day Sisyphus,where any physical peak and symbolic honour is quickly met with a return todissatisfying desire.

More importantly, the quest for such physical capital, paradoxically, demandsthe embodied bodily difference of fat and flaccidity. Consumers displaying a lackof physical capital, who willingly locate themselves within the health and fitnessclub, in repentant acknowledgement of their sins and dreaming of physical trans-formation, provide the essential substance of physical capital. Through their quest,physical capital and its symbolic derivative becomes, not only desirable, but alsoperpetuates a process of domination that is, essentially, self-imposed. It is thispolitical play of embodied difference that perpetuates the apparently universalizingdream of physical capital and, thus, keeps the treadmills literally and economicallyturning.

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Health clubs and body politics: Aesthetics and the Quest for Physical Capital