'Whatever it takes': Building the disciplined body and self: A Foucaulldian analysis of Danish bodyfitness athletes

TY - ABST

T1 - 'Whatever it takes': Building the disciplined body and self

T2 - NSA 2018: The 29th Nordic Sociological Association Conference

AU - Lindop, Michelle Sandra Blagdon

N1 - CURIS 2018 NEXS 397

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Fitness training and building the body through weight training has become widely popular in recent years. A rising number of women participate in aesthetic fitness competitions in Denmark. Normalizing practices are being adopted by the participants to build a very lean and muscular body. The aim of this project is to investigate how the bodyfitness athlete manage and regulate her body and how this affects her perception of body and self. Three years of ethnographic field work has facilitated detailed insights in the fitness competition subculture. Semi-structured interviews have been carried out with seven Danish female bodyfitness athletes aging between 20 and 39 years. They are categorised as experienced athletes as they have all participated in minimum one national competition in the previous two years. Training, food, use of anabolic steroids, the relationship with the coach and the athlete’s relationship to one’s own body have shown to be essential topics of analysis. With Foucault’s theoretical framework it is shown how the athletes does ’whatever it takes’ to build a nonsustainable but yet necessary athlete identity. It is markedly contrasted to a ’normal life’. Extreme (self-)discipline, egocentric body focus and the ability to ’push through pain’ is negotiated as evident to be accepted as an ’ideal’ and successful bodyfitness athlete. It is further problematized how the exposure of this subculture affects the broader fitness and body culture in the Danish society.

AB - Fitness training and building the body through weight training has become widely popular in recent years. A rising number of women participate in aesthetic fitness competitions in Denmark. Normalizing practices are being adopted by the participants to build a very lean and muscular body. The aim of this project is to investigate how the bodyfitness athlete manage and regulate her body and how this affects her perception of body and self. Three years of ethnographic field work has facilitated detailed insights in the fitness competition subculture. Semi-structured interviews have been carried out with seven Danish female bodyfitness athletes aging between 20 and 39 years. They are categorised as experienced athletes as they have all participated in minimum one national competition in the previous two years. Training, food, use of anabolic steroids, the relationship with the coach and the athlete’s relationship to one’s own body have shown to be essential topics of analysis. With Foucault’s theoretical framework it is shown how the athletes does ’whatever it takes’ to build a nonsustainable but yet necessary athlete identity. It is markedly contrasted to a ’normal life’. Extreme (self-)discipline, egocentric body focus and the ability to ’push through pain’ is negotiated as evident to be accepted as an ’ideal’ and successful bodyfitness athlete. It is further problematized how the exposure of this subculture affects the broader fitness and body culture in the Danish society.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - Fitness competition

KW - Body perception

KW - Identity

KW - Normalising practice

KW - Foucault

UR - https://www.nsa2018.aau.dk/

M3 - Conference abstract in proceedings

SP - 116

BT - Nordic Sociological Association Conference 2018 - NSA 2018 - Aalborg, Denmark, 8th - 10th August 2018

Y2 - 8 August 2018 through 10 August 2018

ER -