By Syndi Victor, Senior Staff Writer, Editorial Assistant
Fitness is all the rage in today’s society, and with good reason. Researchers from several universities and hospitals around the country, including Yale, Johns Hopkins, Emory, and Baylor, conducted a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association about what being active or inactive costs each of us annually in health care spending. The study concluded that inactivity costs the world economy almost $68 billion annually in medical expenses and lost productivity. Most of which was paid out of pocket by the individual. The response from this techno-savvy generation has given rise to an increase in the advertising and promotion of an array of products and Apps encouraging consumers to ‘get physical.’
Fitness trackers like the FitBit and an increasing supply of other technologies have made people more conscious of their physical health than ever before. So why has fitness become so popularized and monetized in our everyday life? It starts with an emerging fitness culture. Fitness culture is a socio-cultural phenomenon that refers to physical exercises. An enduring example since the 70s is the ‘gym culture.’ It involves physical activities in gyms, wellness centers, health clubs, and even community and church centers.
The elevation of fitness to more than an unintentional part of keeping up with the demands of manual exertion began in ancient Greece and Rome through military training and the first Olympic Games. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, physical fitness began to be commercialized. Gyms were set up with the goals not to improve public health necessarily but to stimulate and exploit the desire of people to look good, conform to stereotypes of beauty and stature, halt the advance of aging, and in the bargain, get fit and have fun. These ideals could be seen most in bodybuilders focused on muscle development and young ladies determined to emulate fashion models and actresses.
Advances in technology are now changing the way we do fitness. The “Quantified Self” has become a new phenomenon, where people use technological digital devices to keep track of their daily physical activities to inform and support their workouts. The MOFFITT Cancer Center reports some of the pros and cons of fitness trackers – Almost all respondents reported feelings of satisfaction and achievement when they hit their daily targets. That was an indication that the trackers were helping them feel rewarded for their efforts. However, the downside of these trackers is that some individuals reported if they forgot to wear the device, they were less inclined to exercise. The reason? They wouldn’t receive credit for their efforts via their device.
Conversely, consumers would even feel controlled, pressured, or guilty if they didn’t achieve their goals. Some fitness activity trackers have even reported becoming almost obsessed with beating and documenting their last round of stats. This mania has been drummed up and fanned from the mass media, which has a huge hand in shaping fitness culture to support the message of an ideal body image. Television, magazines, and book publications still tend to promote slimness or even thinness as the perfect standards of the female body image and slenderness or muscularity as the ideal male body image.
There is another social aspect to the fitness culture; people who regularly attend fitness institutions or groups tend to make friends at these locations. They feel part of something; experience a sense of community. Although this kind of friendship generally remains restricted within the confines of the fitness institution, it can and sometimes spills over into regular life. The atmosphere generated by people with the same goal can become a source of motivation and imbue a feeling of belonging in participants – this adds to the overall satisfaction and contentment of the group members.
Regardless of the pros and cons of fitness culture in its many facets, it is still a commercial commodity. Participants must pay for their membership, purchase Apps, and subscribe to the relevant technologies. The individual’s actual health can get lost in this commercialization of fitness. The more significant point is that self-improvement and maintaining physical health are always great to incorporate into your daily life. However, it is essential not to put too much pressure on yourself to fit an image of perfection that very few, if any, can achieve. Our job is to strive to engage in sufficient and appropriate physical activities to keep us healthy, fit, and living a balanced and complete life.
