Deconstructing the Fitness
Industrial Complex: How to Resist, Disrupt, and Reclaim What It Means to Be Fit in American Culture
Perspectives from QTBIPOC, fat, and disabled trainers, bodyworkers, and coaches on reimagining fitness for all bodies.
For readers of Belly of the Beast, Care Work, and The Body is Not an Apology
Fit is subjective. Who our society designates as fit--and who gets to be fit in our society--is predefined by the coaches, gyms, and systems at large that uphold and reproduce the Fitness Industrial Complex for their own structural and material gain.
The Fitness Industrial Complex uplifts some bodies while denigrating others. Bodies that are Black, Brown, queer, trans, poor, fat, and disabled--bodies that don't conform, that resist and disrupt--are excluded from being "fit." Through the stories and experiences of activist trainers, coaches, and bodyworkers of diverse identities and experiences, this anthology interrogates:
- The ideas and beliefs we've internalized about health, fitness, and our own and others' bodies
- How to deconstruct and re-envision fitness as a practice for all bodies
- The fitness industry's role in upholding and reinforcing oppression
- Exclusivity, unsafety, and harm in mainstream fitness spaces
- How to empower ourselves and our communities to push back against the FIC
- Health & Wellness
- 240
- North Atlantic Books
- May 2, 2023
- 9781623177270