The rationalization of leisure time – the scarcity of emotional excitement in a health-promoting exercise intervention for women

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to understand how the established biomedical perspective on the body enables and constrains participation in physical activity. Based on a sociological standpoint, an exercise intervention with middle-aged women is analysed through empirical material from observation (N = 57), focus groups (N = 51) and individual follow-up interviews (N = 21). The article finds that spinning is a highly routinized and structured activity that entails a prevailing health-promoting control of the emotions to complete and a scarcity of emotional excitement. The article concludes that the biomedical perspective involves a rationalization of leisure time that excludes the emotional excitement usually associated with sports. The emotional body should not be neglected when the (in)active body is problematized in public health. Additionally, participation in long-term exercise would be more likely if couched in an understanding of the activity as an aim in itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Women
• middle-aged
• spinning
• physical activity
• leisure time
• emotions
• health
• Elias
• exercise intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Maria Gliemann Hybholt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0308-9680

Lone Friis Thing http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4860-1123

Notes

1. Spinning is an organized exercise activity using a special stationary exercise bicycle in an indoor classroom setting.

2. Elias and Dunning (2008 [1986], 82) distinguish between lower level health, which regards the physiological health, and higher-level health, which involves benefits such as refreshing emotional stimulation through motility and mimetic competition.

3. Constructions of phenomena such as physical activity are to be understood as both historical and social in the way that the meaningful understanding of the phenomenon takes shape in the interaction between people in a given historical context.

4. We draw a distinction here between feelings and emotion although in Danish this distinction is not normally made. Feeling is the sensing of emotion – the way in which we sense or register the emotion. Emotions, by contrast, are the conscious linguistic designation for a bodily reaction. According to Elias (1987) feelings, as much as the dimension of actual behaviour, are part of the emotion syndrome.

5. Inclusion criteria: age 45–55 years; healthy; BMI between 18.5 and 30; of legal age; physically active less than one hour a week. Exclusion criteria: known chronic diseases; smoker; consumer of more than 10 units of alcohol per week; elevated blood pressure or any use of medication.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UCPH Excellence Program for Interdisciplinary Research (2016); Ministry of Culture Denmark.

Notes on contributors

Maria Gliemann Hybholt

Maria Gliemann Hybholt is Post Doc at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen. She has a Master’s degree (cand.scient.) in Humanities and Social Sport Sciences as well as a PhD degree from the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports from the University of Copenhagen. Her research involves, among other things, health promotion and bodily aspects in the everyday life in regard to physical activity.

Lone Friis Thing

Lone Friis Thing is Associate Professor and Head of Sport, Individual and Society at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen. She holds Master’s degrees (cand.scient) in the areas Humanities and Social Sport Sciences and Biology, as well as a PhD degree from the Department of Sociology – all from the University of Copenhagen. She is a researcher in health promotion and prevention in relation to sport and physical activity.