Aesthetic object - complex significance to be trained, painted, pierced & tattooed?
Political object - to be disciplined, tortured, manipulated and controlled?
Economic object - to be exploited, fed and reproduced?
Sexual object - to seduce and be seduced?
A machine - to be maintained?
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Social changes affecting our bodies
Exposure to thin-ideal / muscular-ideal media leads to negative feelings about one's own body (Grabe, Ward & Hyde 2008)
Self-esteem prospectively predicts body dissatisfaction (Paxton, Eisenberg, & Neumark-Stzainer 2006)
Consumer culture encourages self monitoring
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Social changes affecting our bodies
Shifts from active labour to sedentary lifestyles
"The body is a project to be worked on - rather than a given object - means that 'appearance,size. shape, and even content are potentially open to reconstruction'" (Sparkes 1997)
Healthism places the fit or healthy body on a pedastal as one of the most desirable states of being in our society
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Healthism
Where the prime purpose is the maintenance of the inner body becomes wrapped up in the enhancement of the outer body
"You are what you eat"
"Nothing tastes as good as feeling thing"
Fat is bad, thin is good"
We are all subject to these social discourses and media communications
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Fitness & Healthism
Physical activity is one of the most important symbolic domains in presenting identity (Smith Maguire 2008)
The word 'fit' has changed its meaning from healthy to good-looking.
Is fitness an unobtainable goal?
It is not enough for the body to be fit - it needs to be seen to be fit.
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Health & Branding
The Vitamin Myth
Branding with 'water'
Artworld meets pharmaceuticals
Sugary drinks acquire a social stigma - Obesity? a disease of economics?
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