Fitness Clubs and the Dynamics of Reflexivity of Leisure
Fitness Clubs and the Dynamics of Reflexivity of Leisure

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine how fitness centres fall in line with the reflexive projects of the self and active policy of choice and lifestyle, and how people create, reflect and are influenced by the foundations of the late-modern order. Such a perspective makes the gym a processual, dynamic category involved in a number of individual and social processes. At the research level the main goal was to observe how individuals negotiate fitness activities into their everyday life, what fitness means to them and why they exercise, and to explore the ambivalence on the basis of a complex interplay of tension and release. Through empirical discussion I show that the reflective attitude is rarely a matter of choice, but rather a result of pressure or social-cultural obligations.

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