ERIC Number: EJ1149633
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1357-3322
EISSN: N/A
"Tidy, Toned and Fit": Locating Healthism within Elite Athlete Programmes
Brown, Seth
Sport, Education and Society, v22 n7 p785-798 2017
Coaches and athletes have been increasingly inundated with power related "truths" about their bodies, health and performance as they construct their subjectivities. Over the last couple of decades in New Zealand, schools have initiated elite athlete programmes (EAPs) for a select few students based primarily on their athletic ability and fitness levels. Drawing on Gore's techniques of power, my study investigated how healthism and the cult of the body discourses were (re)produced, negotiated and resisted by coaches and elite athletes and how body pedagogies defined and shaped bodies in two high school EAPs. My analysis suggested that "toned and fit" bodies signified responsible athletes compared to "fat" bodies and that elite athletes disciplined their bodies to overcome pain to remain productive. In both EAPs, power circulated at the micro-level of pedagogical practice to normalise and monitor the athletes' diet, body weight and shape, and reinforced tensions between prudentialism and hedonism.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, High School Students, Athletes, Athletics, Human Body, Health Promotion, Health Programs, Physical Fitness, Dietetics, Body Weight, Body Composition, Power Structure
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New Zealand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A