Love Your Body? The Discursive Construction of Exercise in Women’s Lifestyle and Fitness Magazines

Abstract

An analysis of the discursive framing of exercise in women's magazines. The chapter explores the extent to which exercise is constructed as part of the pleasure of women's magazines, pointing to broad differences as well as similiarities across the magazines. The chapter argues that a disjuncture exists between the way exercise is presented on the cover of the magazines and the way it is presented inside. Words and images on the cover of the magazines constructed exercise as a simple and pleasurable way to achieve the desired future self. Yet, inside the magazine women were no longer addressed in these terms, and the pleasure of exercise was consistently subsumed by the pleasure of consumption.