Mulheres e o estilo fitness: os atravessamentos do consumo sob a luz teórica de Néstor García Canclini

Abstract

This research starts from the assumption that the pursuit for physical perfection stimulated by fitness media can have a significant impact on women's relationship with their own bodies and on the practice of physical exercises. The investigation is dedicated to the analysis of the relationships between beauty representations, fitness lifestyle, and health. Using analytical categories inspired by Canclini's perspectives, such as integrative, communicative/distinctive modes of consumption, and consumption as a ritual, the study has as its starting point the following question: How does media consumption relate to the belonging and body-image perception of women who adhere to the fitness lifestyle? The main objective is to observe how beauty representations, fitness lifestyle are appropriated by women and how they impact the self-perception of body image and the sense of belonging to the lifestyle. Specific objectives include the identification of interpretations of fitness lifestyle, body image, and gender; understanding how women adhering to the fitness lifestyle receive and interpret media discourses, and analyzing how the consumption relates to how these women perceive and relate to their bodies. Methodologically, five in-depth, semi-open, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who recognized themselves as adherents to the fitness lifestyle, aged between 20 and 25, of the same social class and ethnicity. Through these interviews, we sought to understand how representations of beauty, fitness lifestyle, and health are perceived and appropriated by these women, influencing their ways of integrating, communicating, distinguishing, and establishing consumption rituals. The results point to the construction of a fragmented female body, constantly evaluated by one's own gaze and that of others from the fitness perspective. The interlocutors, despite verbally denying the subjective desire for beauty, express this longing throughout the maintenance of the fitness lifestyle and concerns about health maintenance. Furthermore, the results point to an interconnection of the beauty/fitness/health lifestyle triad and to the interconnection of the three rationalities proposed by Canclini's socio-anthropological perspective. Furthermore, one can perceive ambivalences and contradictions arising from the interviewees' statements from the perspective of beauty, health and fitness.