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Being fit and having fun with purpose: What it means to be a Les Milles group fitness instructor
Malmö University, Faculty of Education and Society (LS), Department of Sports Sciences (IDV).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1763-9428
(English)Manuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-70452OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-70452DiVA, id: diva2:1890774
Available from: 2024-08-20 Created: 2024-08-20 Last updated: 2025-03-06Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Healthism and professional identity: group fitness instructors navigating health discourses
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Healthism and professional identity: group fitness instructors navigating health discourses
2024 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This mixed methods dissertation employs a survey, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions to investigate the health consciousness of Les Mills International (LMI) group fitness instructors. Using Foucauldian concepts such as discourse and bio-power, the study examines instructors’ construction of their professional identity, and the link between professional identity and healthism, a discourse that promulgates health as an individual responsibility.The findings reveal that LMI instructors' professional identity is anchored in sociability, commitment, and physical perfection. Two stereotypical LMI instructor profiles emerged. Firstly, “the sociable instructor”, who values interacting with participants and colleagues at the gym, as well as engaging with the global LMI community online. Secondly, the “all about being fit instructor”, who teaches LMI to enhance their individual physique. Moreover, instructors understand themselves as role models and health gatekeepers aiming to combat inactivity by exercising vigilantly and adhering to LMI regulations. Moreover, the results show that healthism constitutes LMI professional identity, upheld through social interactions and a collective belief in healthism's rationality. Furthermore, instructors understand their professional identity through their bodies while positioning the body both as a threat and as a solution to health, which reveals how the constructionof health is framed as an individual endeavor. This perspective was fortified during the COVID-19 pandemic,where staying fit became a defense strategy against the virus. Finally, this thesis shows that healthism is inextricably linked to normative femininity and a pathogenic perspective on health. Since healthism masquerades as an apolitical concept through the body, fitness culture can be used to reinvent suppressive structures, such as patriarchy, via healthism. Accordingly, the thesis manifests that investigating health consciousness provides a means to dismantle gendered understandings of health.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö: Malmö University Press, 2024. p. 127
Series
Malmö Studies in Sport Sciences, ISSN 1652-3180 ; 44
Keywords
Healthism, Professional Identity, Group Fitness, Fitness Culture, Discourse, Power
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-70453 (URN)10.24834/isbn.9789178775033 (DOI)978-91-7877-502-6 (ISBN)978-91-7877-503-3 (ISBN)
Public defence
2024-09-09, Orkanen, D 138, Nordenskiöldsgatan 10, Malmö, 13:15 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Note

Paper I  as manuscript.

Paper I  is not included in the fulltext online.

Available from: 2024-08-21 Created: 2024-08-21 Last updated: 2025-05-09Bibliographically approved

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Andersson, Karin

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