Anthropology of a fitness academy: a view about body and a space of social representation

Abstract

It is a field work accomplished in a fitness academy in north of Rio de Janeiro City, where we analyzed the representation on the body and the desires of looking for an idealized model. We concentrated our interest in the reasons that take the individuals to spend it so much effort and time in that activity. Data of the literature reveal that we are inserted in a "body culture" and that that behavior interferes in the people's life and in the image that you/they have of themselves. To leave of those data we identified the cultural and social relationships of that universe, through the participant observation and of the analysis of applied questionnaires to the individuals.