Finding fun in the fatigue: Exploring healthism among group fitness instructors

Abstract

The concept of health is culturally contingent, and fitness practices provide a venue to gain insights into the construction of health. In this case study–based article, I focus on group fitness instructors’ narratives on healthiness and fitness rituals. By combining Foucault’s notion of the ‘microphysics of power’ and the socio-cultural phenomenon healthism, I employ a genealogical approach that reveals how healthism renders a discursive space for group fitness instructors (‘local fitness experts’) to navigate their understanding of health norms. A qualitative method consisting of 22 semi-structured interviews was used. Group fitness instructors teaching in Austria for a global group fitness distributor (Les Mills) were interviewed. The results show that eliminating risks to health is the highest imperative to the instructors, which is traced back to a dichotomy between ‘disciplined training’ and ‘fun training’, where fun training is seen as feminine and risky. Furthermore, instructors underline their health literacy through skeptical consumerism – choosing health for the sacrifice of fun or finding fun in the fatigue.

Introduction

Fitness drives consumption and has important social, political and economical functions in a society (O’Neill, 2020: 629). Its influence is felt on social media (e.g. the fitspiration movement), magazines (e.g. Women’s Health), and the food industry that seemingly caters to every diet (e.g. Keto). This development results in an increased health literacy among the western middle class (Martschukat, 2019), which fuels a consumer culture focusing on the body (Giddens, 1991; Gimlin, 2002; Maguire, 2001). In fact, over the last half decade, fitness and gym going has gone from being a bodybuilding sub-culture to becoming one of the fastest growing mainstream cultures of our time (Scheerder et al., 2020). However, despite the popularity of fitness, the levels of global sedentariness and obesity (globesity; WHO, 2011) have also never been higher (Scheerder et al., 2020), which points toward a health paradox.

One dimension of the health paradox pertains to the suggested remedy against globesity. Although globesity is clearly a global challenge that affects different groups of people unequally, the response has been to politically frame the health debate in the global north as individuals’ personal issues and responsibilities (Crawford, 2006). Accordingly, health becomes the accumulation of individual lifestyle choices – one chooses to stay fit by making, allegedly, healthy lifestyle choices (e.g. exercise, whole foods, mindfulness), and one risks health by making, allegedly, unhealthy lifestyle choices (e.g. smoking, junk food, sugar, excessive stress; Crawford, 2006; Martschukat, 2019). This simplified perspective on health as mainly reflecting lifestyle choices can be seen as health-populism, that finds resonance through beauty ideals and fears of illness partly caused by globesity and, more recently, COVID-19.

To understand underlying structures of health reasoning, the culture, that is to say, the shared meanings and rituals of group fitness instructors are productive to study. They are a professional group at the epicenter of the health paradox since they are both heavy consumers of fitness while simultaneously being promotors of fitness through their classes (Sassatelli, 2007). They can, through their coaching, interaction with participants and personal physique, control and produce a narrative on healthiness.

This article employs the global New Zealand-based company Les Mills International (LMI; founded in 1997), the world’s largest group fitness distributor of pre-choreographed classes, as a case study. Through globalization and digitalization, LMI offers (partly) virtual and immersive fitness experiences such as Bodypump^TM, Bodyattack^TM, Shabam^TM and Sprint^TM (Andersson and Andreasson, 2021). LMI present themselves as a global fitness family, hoping to transcend ethnic, cultural and national boundaries while producing ‘exertainment’ for a wide audience (Andreasson and Johansson, 2016).

This article draws on the empirical findings of 22 semi-structured interviews conducted with LMI instructors active in Austria in 2019. Especially, by combining Foucault’s (1977) microphysics of power and the socio-cultural phenomenon healthism (Crawford, 2006), the analysis shows how healthism renders a discursive space for LMI group fitness instructors (‘fitness experts’) to choose health with the help of a global brand.

Although studying professional cultures and sports is not a common endeavor within cultural studies (Hermes, 2015), ‘sport and leisure industries lead the way in the globalization of consumption’ (Tomlinson, 2005: 7). For example, the 140,000 worldwide LMI instructors teach classes to approximately six million exercisers weekly (LMI, 2022), which makes them consequential producers of health norms. Researching global fitness communities thus illustrates the intertwinement of cultures due to globalization (Roudometof, 2015).

Background

The Les Mills community

LMI is one example of a hybrid fitness community that targets instructorhood at laypeople. The LMI community is unique in the sense that it is fully standardized. Instructors in approximately 120 countries partake in the same workshops, teach the same fitness programs, using the same music, making a fitness experience almost cloneable. Trainees are often former class participants who are acquainted with the concept of the programs but may not have a formal education in sport or health (Andersson et al., 2022; Markula & Chikinda, 2016). The LMI initial education consists of a two-day workshop that needs to be followed up with filmed footage of the trainee teaching choreography to class participants (Felstead et al., 2007).

The LMI fitness routines are choreographed for different ‘feels’, making exercise a matter of social lifestyle events, marketed with the umbrella term ‘exertainment’, a portmanteau of ‘exercise’ and ‘entertainment’ (Andreasson and Johansson, 2016). The workouts range from barbell instruction, yoga, dance, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and martial arts–inspired formats. Despite different programs being designed for diverse market segments, the fitness programs are choreographed using the principles of Taylorism. This makes the choreographies predictable and easy to learn by heart (Parviainen, 2011).

Beyond offering fitness services, LMI puts emphasis on community and sociability (Andersson et al., 2021), which caters to the need for collective support in fitness experiences (Crossley, 2006). LMI arrange fitness mega events worldwide where LMI Adidas brand ambassadors, who function as LMI influencers, present LMI’s new choreographies to fellow instructors and fans.

The LMI community has received scientific attention regarding its franchise model (Andreasson and Johansson, 2016), and their standardization of exercising (Parviainen, 2011; Felstead et al., 2007). More recently, scholars have looked at how COVID-19 related guidelines have changed LMI fitness instructors’ professional practices and communal belonging (Andersson et al., 2021, 2022; Andersson and Andreasson, 2021; Vogl et al., 2022). Importantly, LMI is categorized as aerobics, and previous research on aerobics in the humanities can be divided into two trends, aerobics as objectifying or as empowering (Kennedy and Markula, 2011). In sum, aerobics has been described as favoring lean and toned bodies resulting in a ‘cult of beauty’ (Maguire and Mansfield, 1998; Prickett, 1997; Lloyd, 1996), and by some described as an empowering practice that can challenge norms (Crossley, 2006; Sassatelli, 2007).

Healthism

Exercise is good for one’s health – this has become a ‘truism’, a statement that is perceived as genuinely true, containing no new or intriguing information (Cairns and Johnston, 2015). Based on health as a truism, scholars coined healthism, which is defined as a socio-cultural phenomenon widespread among the western middle class, where laypeople grow increasingly health literate (Cheek, 2008; Clark, 2018; Greenhalgh and Wessely, 2004). The issue at stake in healthism is the medicalization of health, which appears to empower laymen to care for themselves, turning health into a meaningful practice (Crawford, 2006). However, healthism is a neoliberal discourse that constitutes ‘a central organizing ethic of society that shapes the way we live, think and feel about ourselves and each other’ (Gill, 2017: 608), which ultimately excludes individuals – leaving them to a couch potato faith (Gibson, 2022).

Since engaging with lifestyle choices may lead to an increased health literacy (Lupton, 2018), Greenhalgh and Wessely (2004) argue that healthism is mainly practiced by a literate middle class who become overly health-aware and mistrusting of health experts such as doctors. This could be a development where patients gain agency, but likewise result in a loss of trust and patients rejecting therapies (Turrini, 2015). Within the fitness industry, healthism can motivate people to pursue active lifestyles (e.g. becoming a fitness instructor), but it has also been described as fostering ‘an aggressive workout trend’ causing orthorexia (Håman et al., 2017), as well as the stigmatization of obese bodies (Featherstone, 1982; Ross, 2023; Harjunen, 2021).

Accordingly, it becomes the responsibility of the ‘ideal neoliberal citizen` (Lupton, 2018) to avoid ‘risky’ behaviors (e.g. smoking, sugar: McCartney, 2016). Significantly, healthism is rooted in a non-holistic pathogenic dichotomy of health, which differentiates between healthy or ill bodies (Ross, 2023). This may trigger a fear of disease that is culturally contingent on societal events, such as the World Health Organization’s (WHO) labeling of obesity as an epidemic in 2011 (Martschukat, 2019; Tîrhaş, 2013; Welsh, 2011). The fear of disease can be connected to health rituals as Crossley (2006) concludes in his ethnography that explores people’s motivations to work out, ‘gym-goers made reference to a doctor’s advice, a family history of heart problems, or a recent “scare”’ (p. 30).

Finally, healthism makes an ambiguous connection between health and looks. Scholars seemingly agree that high exposure to idealized bodies through media results in mental health issues and anxiety (Tiggemann and Anderberg, 2020) However, women seem to be more affected by the healthism discourse since the slimness ideal is more directed at women than men (Fahs, 2017). Women’s bodies are also commonly portrayed as being in need of work (Bordo, 2004; Gill, 2017; Spratt, 2023). For example, according to statistics, aerobic classes usually consist of approximately 70 percent female participants and the classes are marketed through names such as ‘fat burner’, ‘bootylicious’, and ‘body sculpting’, which point toward body parts in need of work (D’Abundo, 2007).

Methodology

I employ a qualitative Foucauldian (1977) genealogical methodology that allows for a problematization of a taken-for-granted understanding of health and instructorhood among the respondents (Kendall and Wickham, 1998). Foucault’s (1977) ‘microphysics of power’ (p. 26) refers to power expressions on a micro level, such as instructors’ personal choices. In addition, it refers to macro power, or ‘bio-power’ (Foucault, 1981), which is not directed at single individuals but segments of individuals or whole populations (Lynch, 2016). Bio-power can be understood as discourses consisting of knowledge ‘from below’, meaning that bio-power is the result of accumulated micro power relations. Concretely, I have utilized a Foucauldian methodology by Kearins and Hooper (2002). I address three aspects. (1) Identifying discourses, which entails describing conditions that are contingent on a particular time and place that allow certain narratives to become dominant. This aspect ties in with understanding instructors’ ‘truth’ about health. (2) Identifying objectives, which aims at understanding strategies used to change or maintain a status quo. I transform this aim to zoom in on the strategies used for reaching their ‘truth’ about health. (3) Pinpointing how power is exercised. This aspect concerns demonstrating the different sorts of power used (microphysics, bio-power), and I have focused on revealing connections between glocal processes, healthism and the instructors’ meaning making.

The respondents functioned as ‘knowledgeable agents’ (Gioia, 2021) who constructed their realities, which I encouraged by asking open-ended questions. Their knowledge is contingent and gives insights to the conditions that need to be in place to make meaningful claims within the instructor setting in Austria (e.g. who can be considered a good LMI instructor within the community). Since LMI instructors regularly take part in a global fitness culture through their educational material, their outputs are articulations of glocomodification (Urry, 2005). ‘Glocal’ addresses how national and regional variations of supranational, cultural and ideological processes (such as healthism) are blended with local cultures (Roudometof, 2015). Hence, this article attempts to tease out discrepancies and variations in dominant health narratives, which illuminates the constructedness of a presumed stable narrative on health. Focusing on respondents’ discourses on healthiness thus explores different ‘truths’ about health, which illuminates power hierarchies.

Method

For this article, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with LMI instructors who were actively teaching LMI fitness classes in Austria during 2019. The data was collected by the author between March and June 2019. I adhered to the Helsinki Declarations while collecting and handling the data (Holm, 2013)

Sampling

All the participating instructors were officially certified LMI instructors at the time of the interviews. Fourteen were certified in more than one program. Sixteen identified as women while six identified as men. Their level of experience in the fitness profession ranged considerably from being novice instructors to having approximately 15 years experience. Seventeen of the respondents were teaching LMI as a part-time job whereas five people worked as full-time fitness professionals. Fourteen people were based in Vienna whereas eight instructors lived in other Austrian cities. The participants were generally highly educated with time to engage in leisure careers in their spare time (e.g. university staff, judge, consultant, teacher, physician, architect).

Prior to the interviews, the respondents had participated in an anonymous Google survey where they answered questions about their profession as LMI instructors. At the end of the survey, respondents could leave their contact details if they wished to participate in a follow-up interview. I did not pre-select participants for the interviews but contacted everyone who had left their contact details.

Interviews

A semi-structured interview guide was designed (Dearnley, 2005). One could broadly refer to two themes that the interviews covered: (1) how do you reason around your role as a trainer and fitness promoter? and (2) what does it take to be a ‘good’ LMI instructor? The talks lasted approximately one hour each, and to make the respondents feel comfortable, I asked where they would prefer to do the interview (e.g. in a café, at the gym, online: Avis, 2005). Participants were informed about the purpose of the study and that discontinuation was possible at any time, without them having to state a reason.

The interviews began with general questions (e.g. what are your benefits as an LMI instructor?). I then moved on to ask specific questions about their professional habits (e.g. how often do you teach LMI classes?, how do you work with the didactic material?). Finally, I asked questions about how the interviewee reasoned around ideal instructorhood (e.g. what do you think characterizes an LMI instructor?).

Results

The LMI certification ritual – eliminating risks to health

In the LMI community, the certification process – becoming a certified instructor and remaining one – is an example of a globally monitored standardized ritual. It functions as a gatekeeper, determining who becomes an instructor and who does not. Sandra is in her 30s and is certified in six LMI programs and is a full-time fitness entrepreneur.

LMI is a commitment and if you want the product, you have to play by the rules, and the rules are that you have to recertify yourself. I liked the system better before when everyone had to send in a video, because I don’t think that anyone will ever reach a state where they can say that they are so good that they don’t need any feedback. Nowadays, instructors can simply participate in quarterlies to get recertified, but then we don’t know how they actually teach their classes. I don’t think that is good. (Sandra)

Sandra comments on changes that the certification system has undergone. She refers to ‘rules of the game’ provided by the global experts that each instructor must adhere to if they represent LMI. Sandra describes a decentralization process of power that enables instructors’ recertification through theoretical workshops. She indicates that the glocal process that local instructors use as they learn and adapt the knowledge from above needs a controlling gaze. The decentralization results in a loss of authority since, without the bodily performance in front of the assessor, the recertification process has become an empty gesture to Sandra. Also, in the words of Pierre, a part-time trainer in his 40s who teaches Bodypump^TM and BodyattackTM,

The system changed since the number of instructors rose. They don’t have time anymore to look at videos. But an instructor should be a role model with great technique. I think that you could really hurt someone if you’re doing it wrong. (Pierre)

Pierre provides a rational for changing the system – a lack of time, but also narrates why the quality checks through the video analysis were important to him – safety is his main concern. Taken together, both interviewees seemingly agree that the instructors need to be monitored to ensure quality. They both consider the removal of the controlling gaze from the recertification process a risky choice, since LMI now do not know how they (instructors) actually teach their classes (Sandra), which could result in someone really getting hurt (Pierre).

Pierre highlights exercise technique, which was common among the respondents, but also central within a sporting discourse that relies on physics, ‘whenever an individual moves, he either applies the principles of body mechanics effectively or wastes energy and/or suffers strain or injury’ (Hay, 1975: 4). Although the majority did not express doubt that LMI instructors are able to execute the right technique, some counter narratives appeared. For instance, Daniela, who is in her 40s and a certified GRITTM (grit, resistance, interval training) and yoga instructor in Vienna, accentuates the know-how of LMI instructors,

I did a yoga education and that took me a year to finish. We had to learn quite a bit, also theory. When I compare that to the Les Mills education I did, well, how should I put it. I don’t think that Les Mills trainers have any basic knowledge. They get their certification really fast, and they are more like presenters than trainers to me. It’s enough if they can animate and communicate basic cues. It’s good for Les Mills, but as a customer, I wouldn’t say that you can ask the trainer about the science behind the workouts. (Daniela)

Daniela compares two different commercial certificates that she obtained and concludes that, to her, LMI trainers imitate movements without necessarily understanding them. Pierre and Sandra prioritize technique, and while Daniela recognizes that the movements performed by the instructors may be technically correct, they do not have any basic knowledge, implying that local inferring that local instructors are passive consumers of the global product – managing to play by the rules of the game since LMI hands them the answer key. Through the lens of healthism, the instructors are not holistically health literate enough, which she pinpoints as a health risk to the fitness participants.

These narratives show how health risks are mainly experienced as a local concern that can be managed by the global health experts, LMI. However, different narratives on risk emerge, which show different forces that exist within the instructor discourse, ‘power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization’ (Foucault, 1990: 92).

Health literacy – the ‘truth’ about fitness

Giving and receiving feedback, as Sandra refers to, is a common ritual within a neoliberal society, which symbolizes an acceptance that one needs to be adaptable on the free market (Nozick, 2010). However, as shown in the previous section, the adaptability has boundaries. Sandra is not flexible toward a new certification system since she sees it as risking health. In the following quote, Sandra reflects on her instructor journey,

You permanently look and evaluate yourself, and others also give you feedback. I went through a very hard time. I used to film myself while teaching and try to look at the videos objectively, as if I would watch someone else and give myself the same feedback as I would give someone else. This was mentally strenuous since my body didn’t do what I wanted it to, but if you want to develop, you have to do it. It’s worth it, it’s rooted in scientific results. (Sandra)

Sandra highly desires a state of ‘better’ fitness. She wants to choose fitness by physically moving according to LMI’s rules, but ‘my body didn’t do what I wanted it to’. The repetition of bodily movements that her body does not conform to, that become painful to physically perform and mentally painful for her to see, is a self-disciplining act that illustrates the embodiment of discourse, which is ‘the violence we do things’ (Foucault, 1981) that cannot be reduced to a textual level (Hook, 2001). Informed by LMI’s health narrative, Sandra self-examines herself with an objective lens to conclude that she needs to develop her fitness. Sandra’s appeal to authority by referring to LMI’s exercise science informs us that she considers the scientific gaze free from bias – a tool for her to learn the truth about her own fitness.

Foucault (1977) interpreted the need for measuring and categorizing as a way for people to create ‘truths’. One example that he drew attention toward was capitalism, which he calls an episteme – something that is not conceived of as a logic of its own, ‘they seem to forget first, that the market is a “game of truth” and a “regime of veridiction” about which a history can be given, and second, that techniques of domination have not ceased to operate’ (Foucault, 1977: 12). The narratives that ushered for video assessments show that a specific type of health literacy has taken on a similar role within the LMI community. There is a consensus that proper health can be captured and assessed on video footage. The understanding of health corresponds to healthism, which appears as a stable narrative through which each logic must initially tread. Only in harmony with healthism can a claim become valid, or a voice be heard. In other words, healthism is not seen as a construction, it has become ‘the truth about health’, an episteme in the LMI community.

Healthism as an episteme can also be observed in the global LMI community. During a masterclass filming of SprintTM, which is a HIIT workout on a stationary bike, the LMI ambassador, Bas Hollander, wishes to motivate his participants to drive faster and exclaims, ‘there is nothing as honest in life as fitness, you will get back exactly the effort you put in!’ Accordingly, Bas portrays fitness as a bodily state that mirrors what one deserves, which pinpoints the moralizing dimension of healthism (Martschukat, 2019) that particularly emphasizes personal responsibility (Crawford, 1980).

While one could consider the masterclass a staged scenario of a class, LMI instructors necessarily use the masterclasses to learn choreographies and to understand themselves as instructors through the LMI ambassadors on the videos. In the previous example, Sandra narrated her eagerness to improve, but there are also instructors who cease to try amid aesthetic expectations. For example, Esther is a part-time instructor in her 50s who lives in a southeastern city in Austria. She is certified in two LMI programs and has taught LMI for more than 10 years. She reflects on both herself and how the community has developed,

I simply don’t fit the LMI ideal. I think it’s sad how it is, they say it’s ‘one tribe’ so there should be different types of people also regarding body type. This would be important to empower others. I think that it started to get even more extreme as they partnered up with Reebok. Since then, it has gone in the direction of fitness models. You only see extremely lean and thin bodies, but I guess there are different ways of seeing it, I understand if you wanna sell fitness, this is how it needs to look. I think people like to have this idea, that this is how people look. (Esther)

This quote shows the clash between economic, cultural and social aspects of belonging to a global fitness community. Esther opposes the body ideals that LMI spread, but at the same time sees it as a necessary evil to give ‘lean and thin bodies’ privilege ‘if you wanna sell fitness’, which illuminates a dissonance between the global level (masterclasses and brand ambassadors) and the local instructors.

Similar to Sandra, she uses a logic of healthism as the truth about fitness to down-talk herself (e.g. ‘I simply don’t fit; I am not slim enough; I was too old when I started’). Still, she also breaks the illusion of healthism, ‘I think people like to have this idea, that this is how people look’, which we can relate back to Bas’s prophecy – that the body will mirror the effort one puts in. Esther questions the authenticity of those presenting LMI to the world, but at the same time implies that a misconstrued body-portrayal makes the LMI product attractive – this is how it needs to look.

Skeptical consumerism – choosing health by sacrificing fun

The role of personal responsibility is essential within healthism (Crawford, 2006). However, Martschukat (2019) and Tirhás (2013) point toward a recurring paradox; despite many people committing to healthy lifestyle choices, ‘fitness can never be reached, and fitness does not stay’ (Martschukat, 2019: 159). As the LMI ambassador Erin Maw exclaims during the HIIT GRIT^TM masterclass, ‘there is no finish line to fitness, we just keep on going’. Unlike most sports that have clear goals by scoring points, fitness progression is articulated through bodily changes or endurance levels (Håman et al., 2017). In the words of Lena, a middle-aged instructor who coordinates group fitness classes for a gym chain and has two LMI licenses,

I think it’s super important to be fit! In LMI you always have to work on yourself! Since you can’t decide the exercises yourself, you constantly have to do exercises you wouldn’t have chosen. Other trainers don’t have to do that, that’s why their fitness is not as good as LMI trainers. (Lena)

Lena’s comment underlines that working on oneself is something that always needs to be a priority, which paints a dichotomy between ‘a natural unruly body’ that needs to be worked upon, and ‘a desired fit body’ as a goal, which is a dichotomy that makes the arbitrary connection between health and female attractiveness, which has been framed as a trait of postfeminism (Gill, 2017). Lena sees the component of standardization, the impossibility of an LMI instructor choosing exercises, to be fitness enhancing. Based on the, allegedly, less fit physiques of other group fitness instructors, Lena conveys that the possibility of an instructor choosing risks health, since one might not choose the most efficient exercise. Instead, Lena chooses LMI, which chooses fitness for her by providing a finished scientifically proven product.

By extension, Lena’s statement points toward a dichotomy of discipline and having fun. ¹ This aspect is further developed by Agneta, a part-time instructor in her 50s who otherwise works in the public sector. She gives an example by referring to her favorite LMI program CX, now known as LM Core^TM. It is a 30-minute-long core-workout consisting of planks, hovers, abdominal crunches and turning torso exercises,

I love CX, it’s the best program according to my opinion. It’s not like ‘yay let’s do this!’ it’s not a ‘fun’ training. It’s really hard, like at the beginning of a release you may question your ability to do it, but it really makes you stronger and healthier. Like, I don’t even have any back pain anymore. (Agneta)

Agneta considers CX to be the best program due to its efficiency. She refers to the cyclic nature of LMI teaching. Instructors are given new choreographies every third month, which may contain new and challenging exercises. To Agneta, this cycle becomes systematically cathartic, as at the beginning you question your ability, but pushing through the fatigue, challenging the unruly body builds up to improved health, and it really makes you stronger and healthier. We can consider this as one example of ‘microphysics of power’ (Foucault, 1980: 26), namely, bio-power. The dichotomy between ‘fun exercising’ and ‘disciplined exercising’ comes to the fore, and choosing the disciplining option is a way for Agneta to care for herself. This can be likened to what Lupton (2018) named the neoliberal paradox, wherein individuals are living in a world with excessive possibilities but are simultaneously morally expected to abstain from temptation when it comes to consumer behaviors (e.g. resisting food). Agneta’s comment highlights her personal ability to choose health by categorizing CX as the best program although it is not ‘fun’. Agneta is thus willing to sacrifice fun for health, which allows her to be a subject of healthism, an ideal neoliberal citizen – someone who is empowered to know the difference between healthy and risky lifestyle choices.

Taking this dichotomy yet one step further, we hear Mary, who is in her 30s and teaches BodypumpTM and LM CoreTM. She has taught LMI for 10 years but also works in IT and has a background in American Football. She comments,

I like the instructors who teach hard and with power and great technique, also due to my personal sport background, I don’t need it to be fun, that’s not the point. (Mary)

Mary’s comment further sharpens the dichotomy between fun and discipline. In her opinion, fun does not harmonize with serious training, it is not the point. At this stage, the aspect of fun becomes incompatible with a meaningful training, which Mary considers a personal recognition resulting from her knowledge of sport. Hence, sports training is perceived as a serious commitment toward health due to its absence of fun.

Nevertheless, one instructor did not draw a parallel between non-fun/strenuous training and efficiency, but still felt they were practicing a healthy lifestyle. Esther compares the program BodyattackTM, which is an intense sport-inspired cardio conditioning class, to ShabamTM, which is a dance class,

We introduced Bodyattack and Shabam in our studio at the same time. Attack fast became three times more visited, so it’s a very small group in our studio who believe that you can have fun and get fit at the same time, and they are really into it, but I think this idea that ‘you have to work hard, it has to be painful’, this idea is widespread, especially among men. (Esther)

Esther’s reflection puts into words Lena’s, Agneta’s and Mary’s depiction of effective fitness as something that usually needs to focus on discipline rather than fun. She points toward a gendered aspect of the discourse, that men would like it hard and painful. Hence, the dichotomy becomes gendered – a fun training is associated with women and a disciplined training with men. Yet, among the respondents, more women than men sided with disciplined training, which begs the question of whether LMI workouts blur traditional gender norms, or if the subject position produced within the instructor culture is perceived as masculine and therefore more empowering. Esther seemingly wants to find a middle way – ‘get fit and have fun at the same time’.

Discussion

The results show instructors’ meaning-making concerning health norms within their professional culture. Using their ‘truth’ about health, instructors took their knowledge of health (health literacy) and turned it into power by choosing health, manifested in health practices – how to exercise while avoiding risks. For example, bio-power: Agneta sacrifices fun since she considers discipline more health enhancing. As described by Crossley (2006), ‘gymgoers learn to reframe muscular burn, stiffness, breathlessness, a pounding heart, and exhaustion as immediate pleasures (. . .) as a need for exercise, and as signs of achievement and well-being’ (p. 40). In other words, the ‘right type’ of pain becomes an emotional payback – ‘I don’t even have any back pain anymore’ (Agneta). This shows the instrumentalization of discourse, choosing a non-fun workout to take responsibility for the body. However, the dichotomy between fun and discipline turned out to be gendered. Fun became attached to femininity, which was generally dismissed as ‘not being the point’ (Mary) of serious training.

A further example of the gendered dimension of healthism emerges through Lena’s advice to other LMI trainers: ‘be fit, you always have to work on yourself!’ Lena’s depiction of an unruly body in need of taming resonates with a postfeminist need for normative female attractiveness, which is articulated through the body, ‘presented as women’s source of power and as always already unruly and requiring constant monitoring, surveillance and discipline and remodeling (and consumer spending) to conform to (. . .) female attractiveness’ (Gill, 2017: 616). Like the neoliberal paradox (Lupton, 2018) where laypeople, despite different possibilities, need to take full responsibility for their health, Lena’s comment implies that LMI instructors are not held back by patriarchal structures, but by their lack of fitness, ‘a lack that is presented as being entirely an individual and personal matter, unconnected to structural inequalities or cultural forces’ (Gill, 2017: 618).

Moreover, the analysis says something about skeptical consumerism – that can make an individual reject a conventional option based on alternative knowledge (Greenhalgh and Wessely, 2004). This becomes a glocal process whereby instructors consume a global fitness product handed down by the global health experts LMI, letting them create a normative identity through consumption. However, as shown through the analysis, the instructors’ relationship to LMI rather points toward paternalism, since it is conveyed that LMI knows what is best for their health, meaning that the power of choice materializes into letting others decide. The power of choice is thus transferred to a different authority rather than to an empowered individual. As expressed by Lena, ‘we don’t choose the exercises, that’s why we are fitter than other trainers’. This finding shows how healthism masquerades as individual empowerment but rather boils down to consumerism, since choosing health is about choosing a standardized product. As Foucault (1980) argues, ‘all other truth games, whether these be social, religious or political, have become subordinated to the market as the final arbiter of truth’ (p. 119). This exemplifies how a neoliberal logic operating through the marketplace effects personal health behaviors, a trend that has grown over time (Brown, 2015; Mirowski, 2013), which displays that although healthism does not necessarily concern real health, it impacts real health by resulting in lifestyle choices.

Furthermore, the analysis flaunts the medical gaze of healthism, which reveals how healthism becomes embodied, a state where the disciplining traits of healthism come to a the fore. For example, most respondents were in favor of video assessments since it, allegedly, provides the tools to measure health literacy. Sandra even resorted to filming herself in her spare time to ensure that her body was playing by the rules, a practice she referred to as painful. This shows how healthism goes beyond a textual level. Also, this is one of the most telling manifestations of healthism since it directly connects physical appearance to health, health literacy and potentially also to social characteristics such as age, gender and ethnicity (Hervik et al., 2021).

Seen from a wider perspective, this article says something about global structures and their effect on local cultures. Through the analysis, LMI surfaces as an example of postfeminism, a community culture ‘cultivating the ‘right’ kinds of dispositions for surviving in a neoliberal society: aspiration, confidence, and resilience’ (Gill, 2017: 610). Through their statement of intent, LMI (2022) portray themselves as a community that has overcome ethnic, racial, geographic and religious differences through shared love for music and movement. By enhancing individual empowerment through exercise, it is making use of a postfeminist sensibility to reframe health in universally likable ways without challenging any normative values. To the local instructors, health thus appears to be a choice that everyone can make; fun training lacks discipline corresponding to an unruly female body, while disciplined training offers a way out for those who ‘make the right choices’, muting those unable, or unwilling to, make these choices.

Within this setting, healthism can flourish. However, what seemingly makes the healthism discourse bulletproof within the LMI setting is that its logic manages to cater to both individualists and utilitarianists. Instructors work on their own bodies while simultaneously tending to the physiques of others, embodying their classes as an altruistic ritual contributing toward ‘a fitter planet’ (LMI’s motto). This type of global fitness product becomes the private industry’s way of countering a societal issue (globesity) through a business opportunity (see also Zumba, CrossFit, Adidas Runners). Accordingly, as globesity increases, so does the popularity and legitimacy of fitness (Maguire, 2008 [2007]), which reveals the fitness industry’s dependence on cultural understandings of health, and narratives portraying health as being at risk, which allows the fitness industry to keep itself relevant.

Conclusion

This article has shown how a global fitness provider, LMI, impacts local instructors who adapt and make sense of their fitness product – a glocomodification process. The analysis has shown, through three examples (LMI ritual, the ‘truth’ about fitness, discipline vs fun), how healthism creates a discursive space for LMI group fitness instructors (‘fitness experts’) to choose health and position themselves in relation to health risks, ultimately becoming deeply rooted in the community by creating a normative identity through consumption. The analysis pointed toward a dichotomy between fun and disciplined training. A fun training became attached to an unruly feminine body, which surfaced as risky to health, while disciplined training emerged as a meaningful way to train to care for the body.

The participating LMI instructors share a social language where the terms fitness and health have merged. The understanding of health and fitness gains its validity from the logics of healthism, which operates as an episteme within their community – a taken-for-granted truth on which basis health literacy can, allegedly, be measured, connecting physical appearance to health competence and social characteristics. Some counter narratives also surfaced where instructors criticized superficial understandings of health. These narratives foreground bodily diversity and fun as an alternative way to lead a healthy lifestyle. Yet, the majority showed their subjectivity to healthism by emphasizing that they choose discipline over fun when exercising, signalling an ability to know the difference between risky and healthy lifestyle choices.