Fitness. Nationale ambities en persoonlijke behoeften

Samenvatting

Fitness: National Ambitions and Personal Needs. In this article I try to give an explanation for the strong increase of participation in sport and other fitness activities. In the first part of the article, I argue that this increase has nothing to do with the 'sport for all' policies of national governments. In the second part, I offer my own explanation and some supporting empirical data. The most important conditions for the increase in sport and other fitness activities are an abundance of food and the absence of need for physical effort. The resulting tendency toward the fattening of the population of affluent societies is partly restricted by the emergence of a social norm that sanctions slenderness. I argue that it is to conform with this norm that, in recent years, most people have become active in sport and fitness. This norm is based on a mix of ideas about health, aesthetics, and the morality of self-control. I try to prove that these last two aspects are of more consequence than the wish to be healthy. 2 Tables, 49 References. Adapted from the source document.