"Forever Young?": Intersectional Perspectives on Aging, Fitness, and Health

The demographic change presents new, primarily financial challenges for the state, politics, and the economy (level of power and domination relations). Aging (doing age) should be understood as a social construct that primarily offers self-empowerment opportunities for those who can follow the trend of age activation through sports/fitness due to higher educational qualifications and greater financial resources, and who maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The goal of this project was to analyze fitness studio advertising from an intersectional and inequality-reflective perspective based on the structural categories of body/aging, gender, and class. It aimed to interview trainers with a focus on older active individuals (representation level) and to take a differentiated look at the self-techniques of older women active in fitness studios gathered through a qualitative interview study (subject level). On one hand, working on the body can strengthen one’s own social positioning; on the other hand, devaluing others who do not follow the trend can give rise to a new form of ’lookism.’

Dr. Gabriele Sobiech is a Professor of Sport and Body Sociology as well as Gender Studies at the University of Education Freiburg in Breisgau.