Paradoxes of the Flesh

Abstract

Analyzing women’s fitness/beauty magazines for advice on diet and exercise reveals a range of contradictions, the focus of this research. Contradictory diet and fitness discourses signify our culture’s paradoxical expectations for women’s bodies, ensuring that virtually no woman can measure up. In short, the production of feminine bodies is rigged for failure. Starting with Spitzack’s (1990) initial insights into the “aesthetics of health” and fat as disease, we explicate, through textual analysis, the underlying principles of eight essential contradictions in diet and fitness discourses (e.g., diets are freeing), principles that both necessitate and enable the discursive net in which contemporary women are ensnared. Comparisons are drawn between the themes that Spitzack elaborated and those uncovered by our examination 20 years later. Connections are made to the obesity “epidemic” and implications are discussed. Future research should investigate the actual interpretation and utilization of these contradictory messages among magazine readers.