Essay on Fitness Industry

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Sociology

Document 1

The physical training industry has been transformed into a commercial sector where people spend so much money and time purchasing fitness products. Those who desire huge muscles channel great efforts on body training despite the changing concepts of fitness which has seen the physical fitness industry focusing on commercialization of services rather than promoting health. It is a critical to analyze how physical fitness training damages our bodies. Fitness training could help people gain muscle and improve immune system, however, fitness industry ignores what people really demand since they will not teach people how to treat their body correctly to be healthy, instead, they propagate commercial strategies to earn profits and stimulate the economy by spreading the ideas, creating anxiety or pride, a trend which is known as McDonaldizing customers.

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Firstly, fitness industry spreads their misleading ideas through the social media arguing that the idealized body is a symbol of good health. They not only exert pressure among people, but also create a mainstream culture which regards the physical activities as one of the most significant social activities. If you don’t take care of your body and go to gym to work-out, you won’t have wonderful body shape and not as popular as those who have huge muscles. The fitness industry demonstrates that the fat is bad for your health and it is shaming to have body fat around the waist. It is also a part of fitness mainstream culture. People accept it and believe that the lazy person would have a belly.

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They spend whole day in the gym with a personal diet for each meal. It is very difficult to catch up for normal people. Thirdly, the physical training industry has adopted the McDonaldization of services by replicating what the fast food giant McDonalds did to its customers. McDonaldization is a term which originated from Sociologist George Ritzer explaining how the society was gradually adopting the principles of the fast food restaurant. The traditional ways of doing thinks are being replaced with efficiency and social control (RITZER, 2011). McDonaldization of physical training centers has made gyms to admit both genders as opposed to traditional male dominated consumption. Currently, there are many female trainers who are only there to attract male customers. Female clients are promised that they will have bodies similar to those of models on television (ANDREASSON and JOHANSSON, 2014).

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Male customers are assured of building muscles. The physical training industry is banking on the McDonald’s principles to commercialize the sector. The monotonous physical activity in the gyms discourages many people from enrolling for physical training classes. The movements at the gym are overly repetitive and the trainers subject their customers to the same workout methodologies. It is a very boring experience with no practical real life function. The trainers encourage people to focus to the end because the more you stay, the more they earn. The contemporary physical training is focusing more aesthetic as opposed to health and physical fitness. Therefore, it is prudent to conclude that the contemporary physical training industry is a public health failure. References ANDREASSON, J.

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