Physical culture, pedagogies of health, and the gendered body

Sport and physical activity is commonly constituted as a panacea, and charged with combating all manner of social problems from obesity to youth disaffection. In this chapter, the authors explore how these contemporary visions of health and physical activity within social-cultural and political contexts shape how we come to understand the "sporting female," focusing specifically on the UK context. The chapter highlights the pressures placed on girls and young women to display appropriate physically active, fit, and "thin" subjectivities in contemporary societies where consumption practices, body ideals, and obesity discourse converge on and through their bodies. Whilst obesity discourse emphasizes weight-loss practices and thinness, mediated physical culture also emphasizes a toned femininity. The chapter demonstrates the importance of broader physical culture in terms of how we "learn" through body pedagogies about the value, importance, and meaning of particular physically (in)active bodies..