Deconstructing the Fitness-Industrial Complex
Read by
Janina Edwards
Release:
05/02/2023
Runtime:
7h 31m
Unabridged
Quantity:
... I think many of us so-called ‘straight folks’ take for granted a fitness culture with safe spaces for us to be who we are and who we want to be. Deconstructing the Fitness Industrial Complex is a necessary and powerful wake-up for us all about how even the workout world can be a place of oppression, hate, invisibility, and isolation. Like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and the greatest writings of bell hooks, this book centers those often left at the margins—including sick, queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC—in a way that humanizes, while also challenging notions of health and wellness that do not include all people, no matter their identities. Read it because it is the right and human thing to do. Read it and remember that until all bodies are free, no bodies are free.
Kevin Powell, poet, journalist, civil and human rights activist
Perspectives from QTBIPOC, fat, and disabled trainers, bodyworkers, and coaches on reimagining fitness for all bodies.
For readers of Belly of the Beast, Care Work, and The Body is Not an Apology
Fit is subjective. Who our society designates as fit--and who gets to be fit in our society--is predefined by the coaches, gyms, and systems at large that uphold and reproduce the Fitness Industrial Complex for their own structural and material gain.
The Fitness Industrial Complex uplifts some bodies while denigrating others. Bodies that are Black, Brown, queer, trans, poor, fat, and disabled--bodies that don't conform, that resist and disrupt--are excluded from being "fit." Through the stories and experiences of activist trainers, coaches, and bodyworkers of diverse identities and experiences, this anthology interrogates:
•The ideas and beliefs we’ve internalized about health, fitness, and our own and others’ bodies
•How to deconstruct and re-envision fitness as a practice for all bodies
•The fitness industry’s role in upholding and reinforcing oppression
•Exclusivity, unsafety, and harm in mainstream fitness spaces
•How to empower ourselves and our communities to push back against the FIC
Speaking directly to sick, queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC readers, Deconstructing the Fitness Industrial Complex is part urgent inquiry, part radical deconstruction, and part call to action: to build spaces that welcome and work for all; to reclaim movement as a vital and liberatory practice; and to embody a model of joy and community care outside the mainstream fitness culture.
For readers of Belly of the Beast, Care Work, and The Body is Not an Apology
Fit is subjective. Who our society designates as fit--and who gets to be fit in our society--is predefined by the coaches, gyms, and systems at large that uphold and reproduce the Fitness Industrial Complex for their own structural and material gain.
The Fitness Industrial Complex uplifts some bodies while denigrating others. Bodies that are Black, Brown, queer, trans, poor, fat, and disabled--bodies that don't conform, that resist and disrupt--are excluded from being "fit." Through the stories and experiences of activist trainers, coaches, and bodyworkers of diverse identities and experiences, this anthology interrogates:
•The ideas and beliefs we’ve internalized about health, fitness, and our own and others’ bodies
•How to deconstruct and re-envision fitness as a practice for all bodies
•The fitness industry’s role in upholding and reinforcing oppression
•Exclusivity, unsafety, and harm in mainstream fitness spaces
•How to empower ourselves and our communities to push back against the FIC
Speaking directly to sick, queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC readers, Deconstructing the Fitness Industrial Complex is part urgent inquiry, part radical deconstruction, and part call to action: to build spaces that welcome and work for all; to reclaim movement as a vital and liberatory practice; and to embody a model of joy and community care outside the mainstream fitness culture.
Release:
2023-05-02
Runtime:
7h 31m
Format:
audio
Weight:
0.0 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781623179229
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Praise