I’m really angry with gyms, the exercise industry and the manipulation of the body I see around me. The exercise industry and gyms are bad for all of us. Here’s why:
I recently saw this Pilates video and wanted to throw up. To be honest I should have known it was garbage from the title – “The Perfect Body”. What is a perfect bloody body? According to who? Perfect for what? In what culture? In Ethiopia my friends took delight in telling me how fat I’d got since they last saw me.
The modern Western judgements reinforced in gyms on what constitutes an attractive and healthy body are sick…and I mean sick. Trying to suck it all in, “zip and hollow”, get a six-pack like the airbrushed black and white models on the front of men’s health magazine for example – is forcing the body into a socially constructed paradigm of ill health. Lets take the gym idiot below:
He has starvation levels of fat – a substance with serves dozens of purposes (e.g. energy and vitamin storage), abdominal muscles developed to an extreme that will lead to 
postural imbalance and movement difficulties, and is contracting them so he can’t breath with his diaphragm – an embodied stress response of fear/aggression. A postural expert once told me matter-of-factly while looking at a magazine picture, “She’s obviously a professional model…or someone who has been badly bent out of shape in a car wreck…one or the other.” That’s how unhealthy the “ideal” gym image is.
As much as anything the attitude that the modern fashion and exercise industries, and industries is exactly the right word, encourages is the problem. Let’s take the title of one of the best selling pilates books, “Body Control Pilates” Errrr, how about body play, body exploration, body expression, body love or body healing. The old Christian idea of the body as sinful and in need of repression* is alive and well in “fitness” today. Fit for what? Posing maybe, doing anything, probably not. The modern body “ideal” fails on function as well as health- most athletes who need to use their bodies to achieve a practical aim do not look like the gym ideal – David Beckham has an extra workout to get that stomach for advertising bucks at it has nothing to do with his footballing abilities. Secondly the ideal fails on the level of beauty. Studies show that whilst most people are unhappy with their own (normal) bodies, they are attracted to the normal bodies of others. The warping of or self perception is making us miserable! * Most people who use machines or do Pilates are unappealing to me personally as they seem dry, rigid and uptight. Give me a five rhythms babe any night who lets her energy flow…delicious. 
Now let’s move on to gyms: Gyms are not necessary. The mechanisation of exercise is both unneeded and dangerous. The body is designed by millions of years of evolution to dance, run, walk, make love, throw, fight and many things other normal vigorous activities. Primeval man did not strap himself to a pecomaticvibro 5000. Why drive to the gym to go on treadmill? It makes no sense, except from the point of view of consumerism, which requires us to pay for exercise at gyms, when are bodies and a bit of space are all we need.
It’s all a big conspiracy. 60’s feminists realised the body was political and reacted appropriately against the repression of the female form. We need them back and I’m glad to see campaigns like this even if it’s another marketing gymic. I worked with UK schools for several years and saw the endemic of anorexia that is the direct result of the image of “beauty” that’s force fed to us. I’d like to see men’s bodies enter the discussion as well, as we are fare little better, and I’ve noted with sadness boys growing dissatisfaction with not being “built” over the last few years. Twelve-year-olds thinking they should have “pecs” is a disturbing development.
The body that’s currently encouraged is one of stress and aggression. The body that we have determines whether peace is possible, so I’m not just whining about stomachs here, this is a BIG FAT SUMO deal!!! Richard Strozzi Heckler notes how a leader lives in their body enables the decisions they can make – commenting on the gunslinger attitude (as in posture) George W Bush embodies, the pushing too hard of Hillary Clinton and the lack of “orienting principle” of Barrack Obama. Clench your fists and jaw, tighten your stomach, jut your head forward and then tell a friend you love them. Are you capable of love in this state? What is their response?
I normally stay positive on this Blog so I would note that Pilates has been good for a couple of people I know with bad backs so isn’t entirely useless. This is normally attributed to strengthening the abs but I’m not sure if I buy that, the Pilates notion of holding may be akin to the trauma freeze response which protects us while healing occurs more and therefore further damage after an injury. Also the exercises will bring awareness to the area which may interrupt movement patterns leading to damage). My friend Mona here has a very humane approach to Pilates and this book is one I recommended on the subject.
The rise in gym membership has got more people exercising but folks I’ve met in them seem motivated by guilt and shame. One girl turned to me before a Bodycombat (hugh! Macho name man) session I was checking out and said, “Heh, did you know you can burn 600 calories in this class!” She looked a bit confused when I said “Yeah. Is it fun? What do you learn?” Of course there are many excellent gyms and studio classes that have a healthy outlook and it’s not all mechanised. I hope to be running a Holistics classes from gyms soon which I’m viewing as embodied guerrilla peacefare. Ultimately people will have a choice between looking like the “fit” societal model, and actually being healthy and working with the body effectively to do the things they care about.
In the future I think that present body imagine advertising will be viewed how foot binding or cigarette advertising is looked at today. The people that control what we would like our bodies to look like have vested interests and don’t care about our health. The fitness, fashion and food industries want to twist us this way or that as we spend our money, fighting over our sacred form. If the body has any place in your spirituality, what they’re doing amounts to sacrilege and maybe its time for a non-violent jihad… The industries don’t care about our best interests and there is currently very little regulation or education in terms of how they present or manipulate the body. I would like that to change.
There’s a better way, you’re OK how you are, you’re body is perfect. Enjoy it, work WITH it, see what it’s saying, it’s perfect. Enjoy it and ignore the lycra-clad guilt peddling body binders. Rant over, enjoy your day in whatever shape it’s in.
*This idea as the body as sinful is an odd fit with being made in th image of God, and I suspect was tagged on latter when Christianity defined itself as “non pagan.” It is far less apparent in the Jewish tradition.
* See Discovering The Body’s Wisdom, page 28, by Mirka Knaster for details of the research. My thinking in this article has also been influenced by Paul Linden.