Exercise for women is a heavily-laden social and embodied experience. While exercise promotion has become an increasingly visible part of health campaigns, obesity among women is rising, and studies indicate that women are generally less physically active than men. Women’s (lack of) exercise, therefore, has become a public concern, and physiological and psychological research has attempted to develop more effective exercise programs aimed at women. Yet women have a complex relationship with embodiment and physical activity that is difficult for quantitative scientific approaches to explore. This book addresses this neglect by providing a much-needed feminist, qualitative social analysis of women and exercise. The contributors, drawn from across Europe and North America, investigate the ways women experience exercise within the context of the global fitness industry. All the authors take a specifically feminist perspective in their analysis of the fit, feminine body, exploring media images and the global branding of fitness products, the relationship between exercise and fat, the construction of physical activity within health discourse, and the lived experience of the exercising body. The collection explores the diversity of women’s experiences of exercise in relation to age, ethnicity and body size. The book is essential for anyone interested in health promotion, sport and exercise or the social and cultural study of gender and embodiment.

Reviews

'The essays provide particular insight into the various methodologies feminist researchers use when they engage in qualitative analysis of sociocultural conditions. These perspectives are not commonly represented in the media, and when they are proffered they are typically marginalized….This book is an invaluable resource for those invested in injecting health information into the public conversation.' – J. A. McClung, Berea College, Recommended title, CHOICE

Contents

Introduction: Beyond Binaries:orary Approaches to Women and Exercise Pirkko Markula and Eileen Kennedy Part 1: The Business of Exercise: Selling and Consuming Fitness 1. Love Your Body? The Discursive Construction of Exercise in Women’s Lifestyle and Fitness Magazines Eileen Kennedy and Evdokia Pappa 2. Women Developing and Branding Fitness Products on the Global Market: The Method Putkisto Case Jaana Parviainen 3. ‘Folding’: A Feminist Intervention in Mindful Fitness Pirkko Markula Part 2: Body Trouble: Fat Women and Exercise 4. Fit, Fat and Feminine? The Stigmatization of Fat Women in Fitness Gyms Louise Mansfield 5. I Am (Not) Big…It’s the Pictures That Got Small: Examining Cultural and Personal Exercise Narratives and the Fear of Fat Kerry R. McGannon, Christina R. Johnson and John C. Spence 6. Large Women’s Experiences of Exercise Karen Synne Groven, Kari Nyheim Solbrække and Gunn Engelsrud 7. Obesity, Body Pedagogies and Young Women’s Engagement with Exercise Emma Ric...