Swim club membership and the reproduction of happy, healthy children

Abstract

Through ethnographic methods, I examine the ways in which upper middle-class families facilitate the reproduction of their healthy lifestyles through their affiliation with the Valley View Swim and Tennis Club, a semi-private facility located near a major mid-Atlantic city in the USA. Drawing on Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of social class, I argue that club membership operates as future investment in children’s health with the cultivation of their healthy swimming bodies serving as visible markers of class-based, embodied capital. Specifically, the pool offers parents a distinctive cultural context in which to augment children’s medical health and physical safety, build a foundation for lifelong physical activity practices, help them achieve an ideal body weight and control their consumption habits. Ultimately, the club serves as a powerful and influential physical space in which families engage in important health-related practices and processes contributing to the reproduction of their healthy, upper middle-class children.