Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 90, August 2013, Pages 63-71
Social Science & Medicine

“Your body is your business card”: Bodily capital and health authority in the fitness industry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.05.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Personal trainers rely on fit physiques as sources of credibility.

  • This “bodily capital” enables health authority in dealings with clients.

  • Trainer–client interactions become spaces where diagnosis and treatment take place.

  • Trainers without high levels of bodily capital face structural disadvantages.

  • Results indicate that bodily capital may be necessary for physician credibility.

Abstract

Although scholars have noted the connection between appearance and assumptions of health, the degree to which these assumptions matter for establishing authority in social interaction remains less clear. Using a theoretical framework involving “bodily capital”—that is, the value generated from appearance, attractiveness, and physical ability—I investigate the role of appearance in the U.S. fitness industry. Drawing on data from interviews with 26 personal trainers and 25 clients between 2010 and 2011, I find that a trainer's fit-appearing physique imbues their interactions with a degree of moral and health authority. This corporeal credibility engenders trust among clients and allows exercise to be understood as a form of health work. The implications for academics and medical practitioners reach beyond the gym setting and extend recent research linking appearance to health, authority, and medical credibility.

Introduction

As a means of evaluating health, one's appearance has been taken as a sign of well-being or debility for some time (Haley, 1978; Whorton, 1982). While new methods of illness detection have developed technologically, appearance—particularly one that is considered attractive or “fit”—continues to play a role in medical assessment (Jutel & Buetow, 2007). As Jutel and Buetow (2007) note, “Whilst no heuristic is faultless, it is useful for clinicians to reflect on the assumptions underpinning their recommendations and to acknowledge how appearance influences practice” (p. 432). Accordingly, positive health appraisals may be due in part to the continued connection between appearance and morality (Saguy & Gruys, 2010; Synnott, 1989), suggesting that “good-looking” people possess higher strength of character and willpower (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972). At the same time, sociologists and social psychologists have catalogued the myriad ways that attractiveness reaps material and symbolic rewards including esteem in interpersonal groups (Anderson, John, Keltner, & Kring, 2001), economic advantages (Hamermesh, 2011), and social status (Webster & Driskell, 1983). Thus, scholars have shown that being considered attractive leads to assumptions of health, morality, and competence. However, the degree to which these assumptions matter in social interaction—particularly for establishing authority—remains less clear.

Recent research indicates a strong correlation between body weight, appearance, and physician authority (Bleich, Bennett, Gudzune, & Cooper, 2012; Monaghan, 2010). For example, doctors with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI) often recommended exercise and diet as a means of controlling body weight (Bleich et al., 2012). However, overweight and obese physicians were more likely to suggest pharmacological treatment for obesity (Bleich et al., 2012). Similarly, a study of online discussions among health care workers reveals that many took the adage of “Physician Heal Thyself!” literally in regards to body weight (Monaghan, 2010). Monaghan (2010) finds that physicians often acquiesced to associations between fatness and stigma as a means of bolstering professional credibility (p. 2). As one contributor in the study said, “A picture is worth thousand words. Doctors and nurses are the walking pictures that patients look up to. Would you go on the operating table when your surgeon gets out of breath while taking 10 steps to the operating theater? Not me” (Monaghan, 2010, p. 16). One means of explaining this potential loss of credibility is through the concept of “bodily capital” (Bourdieu, 1984; Wacquant, 1995). As a form of capital, the body has become a symbolic container indicating both moral and social worth (Giddens, 1991; Saguy & Riley, 2005). The investment of time, energy, and resources into one's body, then, constitutes a way to increase status and may be exchanged for economic, social, or cultural goods (Bourdieu, 1984). Indeed, as the above studies indicate, the authority of physicians—individuals with substantial institutional power—may be jeopardized by low levels of bodily capital. But, is the reverse also true? What types of authority are enabled when individuals possess high levels of bodily capital, but little institutional power?

To explore how bodily capital influences authority and credibility in interpersonal interactions, I utilize data from interviews with 26 personal trainers and 25 clients in the U.S. fitness industry. As locations where one's appearance is highlighted, health clubs (or gyms) are ideal sites to study the effects of bodily capital. Because exercising in gyms is often done with the simultaneous goals of improving health and appearance, the personal trainer–client relationship provides a useful space to investigate fit-appearing bodies and authority. Within the gym environment, personal trainers may be highly regarded for their physiques. At the same time, they have minimal job security and earning potential. Typically only making $20–$25 per hour, trainers must often work long and erratic hours to make even part-time wages. Trainers must also act as salespeople, continually convincing clients to purchase more sessions or risk lowering their income. Structurally-speaking, then, trainers possess little institutional power and often instruct clients with significantly more occupational prestige and income. Yet, as my findings reveal, trainers are able to harness a type of moral authority that emanates from their fit-appearing physiques. This corporeal credibility—or high level of bodily capital—engenders trust among their clients and a belief in their health knowledge. Both trainers and clients discussed exercise in terms of diagnosis and treatment—practices that usually exist outside of a typical “workout” relationship. While neither personal trainers nor clients confused exercise instruction with actual medical practice, the line between the weight room and the doctor's office is complicated by such activity. This study suggests that possessing a fit-appearing physique—conceptualized in terms of bodily capital—provides a degree of moral authority that lends credibility to interactions in the health and fitness industry. The implications for both academics and medical practitioners, however, reach beyond the gym setting and extend recent research linking appearance to health, authority, and medical credibility (Bleich et al., 2012; Jutel & Buetow, 2007; Monaghan, 2010; Saguy, 2013).

Section snippets

Endorsement of exercise in the “epidemic” of obesity

Fit-appearing physiques alone do not command authority. While they might garner respect or elicit attraction, they have no meaning outside of a social context where they are understood to represent willpower, discipline, or a strong moral fiber. Constructions of fit bodies as valorized, then, rely on understandings of un-fit bodies as stigmatized, such as with over-weight and obese bodies in the current historical moment (DeJong, 1980; Fikkan & Rothblum, 2005; Puhl & Brownell, 2001; Puhl &

Bodily capital

The concept of “bodily capital” (Bourdieu, 1984; Wacquant, 1995) describes the value attached to people's appearance, attractiveness, or physical abilities that may be exchanged for other forms of economic, social, or cultural capital. Research has shown that one's bodily capital is consequential in numerous realms of social life, such as influencing evaluations of students (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993; Clifford & Walster, 1973), the marriage market (Margolin & White, 1987), and income disparities

Methods

Between 2010 and 2011, I collected data for this study through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 26 personal trainers and 25 clients in the U.S. Interviews allow the researcher to investigate the meanings associated with particular behavior, and were appropriate given that I was interested in how personal trainers and clients understood the work that occurred in gyms. I recruited participants through email, “snowball” sampling, and at local gyms where I posted flyers. To be included in

Findings

A personal trainer's bodily capital provides a degree of moral authority that establishes trust with clients and allows their work to be seen in terms of healing and treatment. In the following sections, I first detail the types of interactions that occur between trainers and clients, as well as how trainers understand their position in the fitness industry. In these relationships, trainers saw themselves as highly specialized experts conducting health work that their clients—even health care

Health work and expertise in the gym

Exercise is typically extolled for its preventative effects, particularly around mobility and functionality. However, trainers and clients often discussed the healing and restorative powers of exercise and what they hoped to achieve through physical activity. Because of this, the exercise carried out in gyms was often framed in terms of diagnosis and treatment. For example, Rachel (61, white, female, client) explains how her trainer helped her to stop taking medication for hypertension:

He set

Bodily capital, authority, and trust

Personal trainers rely on their knowledge, as well as appearance, to make a living through exercising with clients. In this line of work, a trainer's physique comes to represent a commodity that signals their investment in physical fitness and health. It also quite visibly stands as a type of corporeal credibility that allows them to convert their bodily capital into other forms of capital. Throughout the interviews, trainers routinely referred to their physicality in terms of credibility. For

Conclusions

The importance of one's appearance in social life has been connected to myriad material and symbolic rewards. Particularly in relation to health, a good-looking or fit-appearing physique is often read as representing willpower, knowledge, and morality. Yet, as my findings indicate, a fit-appearing physique also carries with it a degree of authority and, in certain fields, health authority. As is the case with personal trainers in the fitness industry, whose high levels of bodily capital imbue

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my interviewees for their time and participation in this project. I am also thankful to Karin Martin, Annemarie Jutel, Howard Kimeldorf, Renee Anspach, Esther Newton, Alex Gerber, Laura Hirshfield, Emily Kazyak, Zakiya Luna, Carla Pfeffer, and Kristin Scherrer, as well as the Social Science & Medicine Editor Stefan Timmermans, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful input on earlier drafts of this article.

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