Epidemic of fitness

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze a condition we call a fitness epidemic, which is naturalized and disseminated mainly in the field of new health promotion and reinforced in the spaces of physical education activities. The condition refers to obsessive habits and behaviors in relation to health, beauty and vitality, and has become subjected to expert control. The discussion is based on a case study of 59 pieces of promotional material collected at an event titled Expo Wellness Rio 2009; these materials were subjected to semiotic analysis using methodological procedures based on isotopic analysis. The isotopic categories that emerged from the analysis are health/beauty and technology, health/beauty and somatic expertise, and health/beauty and longevity. They point to the enhancement of human vitality as the motivating force in discursive strategies as well as a recurrent value underlying interventions concerned with improved health conditions, intertwined with ideas of longevity and beauty.