Healthism and professional identity: group fitness instructors navigating health discourses

This mixed methods dissertation employs a survey, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussionsto investigate the health consciousness of Les Mills International (LMI) group fitness instructors. UsingFoucauldian concepts such as discourse and bio-power, the study examines instructors’ construction of theirprofessional identity, and the link between professional identity and healthism, a discourse that promulgateshealth as an individual responsibility.The findings reveal that LMI instructors' professional identity is anchored in sociability, commitment, andphysical perfection.Two stereotypical LMI instructor profiles emerged. Firstly, “the sociable instructor”, whovalues interacting with participants and colleagues at the gym, as well as engaging with the global LMIcommunity online. Secondly, the “all about being fit instructor”, who teaches LMI to enhance their individualphysique. Moreover, instructors understand themselves as role models and health gatekeepers aiming tocombat inactivity by exercising vigilantly and adhering to LMI regulations. Moreover, the results show thathealthism constitutes LMI professional identity, upheld through social interactions and a collective belief inhealthism's rationality. Furthermore, instructors understand their professional identity through their bodieswhile positioning the body both as a threat and as a solution to health, which reveals how the constructionof health is framed as an individual endeavor. This perspective was fortified during the COVID-19 pandemic,where staying fit became a defense strategy against the virus.Finally, this thesis shows that healthism is inextricably linked to normative femininity and a pathogenicperspective on health. Since healthism masquerades as an apolitical concept through the body, fitnessculture can be used to reinvent suppressive structures, such as patriarchy, via healthism. Accordingly, thethesis manifests that investigating health consciousness provides a means to dismantle genderedunderstandings of health.