Helen Gremillion - Crafting Resourceful Bodies and Achieving Identities

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"So fitness is 'work' on the self that signifies the ability and energy to perform productive work. 'Working out' is a revealing phase: it indicates a form of work that is extroverted and expressive, a 'productive' release of energy. In this way, the construct of the fit body merges the capitalist dualities of control and release, work and play, constraint and freedom. More specifically, fitness expresses personal competence in managing the dynamic and so-called flexible relationship between production and consumption that characterizes advanced capitalism. Exercise allows for a seemingly productive management of consumption; late capitalist 'overconsumptionism' requires that we put consumption to good use, that we render consumption productive so that we may consume again. Many of us now feel the urge to 'work off' the food that we eat. Fitness practices are both predicated on, and productive of, bodies that are imagined as personal resources for work on the self, work that signals an ability to consume in a productive and efficient way" (Gremillion, 2003: 51).

This picture of my two sisters and me was taken on our family vacation this summer. Emma is on the left, then me, then Caitrin. I think this image really addresses so many things we have talked/read about this quarter. The three of us have a very close relationship, and have physical similarities as well. However, we are all very unique and have different personalities. My dad took this picture of us, and told us that we will have to use this as incentive to stay in shape, and when we look back in twenty years we can see who "still has it". While my dad said this comment in jest, we have probably each interpreted it quite differently. In fact, I think it puts a lot of pressure on each of us on so many levels. Competition is healthy, but what happens if one of us does get chubby? Will we then be the joke of the family in twenty years?

How to get a "celebrity body"
This article shows how we can get a "celebrity body". I wonder - does this mean all celebrities have perfect bodies? What is perfect? Gramillion's article highlights so many interesting things about what we expect from our bodies, and what we expect them to look like. Since becoming more sedentary, we (as a society) have gained weight and must exercise to work off that weight. This is fascinating, because we never used to "need" exercise - the hard work of daily living burned plenty of calories.

Sources:
Gremillion, Helen. 2003. Crafting Resourceful Bodies and Achieving Identities. In Feeding Anorexia: Gender and Power at a Treatment Clinic. Pp. 43-71. Durham: Duke University Press.
Photograph is unpublished
How to Get a Celebrity Body. CBS News Online. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/earlyshow/saturday/main679623.shtml (05 August 2007).