The new fitness world: commodifying well-being in the neoliberal era
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper examines the fitness industry as a by-product of neoliberal ideology, using "The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society" as a conceptual framework. Neoliberalism, as articulated by Dardot and Laval, extends beyond economic policy to shape governance and human behavior by embedding market-driven rationality into everyday life. The fitness industry, with its emphasis on individual responsibility for health and self-optimization, exemplifies core neoliberal tenets. It fosters the notion of the "entrepreneurial self," wherein success or failure is attributed to personal merit, thereby marginalizing collective health initiatives. The proliferation of fitness influencers further reinforces this paradigm, often disseminating misinformation and promoting unrealistic ideals of health and fitness. We argue that the commodification of health within the fitness industry aligns with neoliberalism's foundational principles: competitiveness, self-regulation, and the erosion of collective structures. In response, we advocate for a shift toward health frameworks rooted in inclusivity, equity, and shared responsibility, challenging the individualistic ethos embedded in current fitness discourse. Reimagining health policy through a lens of solidarity offers a pathway to dismantling neoliberal rationality and fostering a more democratic and equitable health system.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.047 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".