Exploring the impact of boutique fitness studio participation on women's mental health

Abstract

Embedded within a culture that values productivity and in a society where economic conditions make it increasingly difficult to survive, wellness industry players offer a buffet of high-cost fitness and wellbeing related activities as an antidote to the stress and anxiety endemic under contemporary capitalism. This thesis sought to understand how the culture and political economy of contemporary wellness, embodied by and capitalized on by Boutique Fitness Studios might impact the mental health and overall well-being of the women who access these spaces. What emerged from participant narratives and experiences is that Boutique Fitness Studios produce and reproduce dominant discourse that moralizes the body and assigns virtue and value to body size/shape, exercise frequency, and exercise performance. Regardless of participants’ physical alignment or conformity with socially constituted and cultural ideals of beauty and thinness participants reported that attending BFSs had a net-negative impact on their overall mental health and wellbeing.