Fitness in Italy: body culture, well-being and active lifestyles

The fitness culture in Italy spreads from the ‘80s, as a training technique for achieving a better physical form, oriented to psycho-physical well-being and health of the individuals. The discipline develops as a universal model of usefulness of body [P. Bourdieu 1978] and places (gyms) in which it is trained in a correct and virtuous, moving between commercial purposes on the one hand and hedonistic-health trends on the other: a kind of "welfare supermarket" in which the customer-consumer can choose from multiple services. The fitness industry is therefore expressed as a matter of lifestyle: the body is a sign of a personal status obtained through pleasure and fun [Sassatelli 2010]. On this basis the chapter shows how the practice of fitness in Italy can indicate the link between active lifestyles and health that public policies (both health, leisure and sport) should tend, as well as the trends of a market that translates the ever increasing request of Italians to care for body, wellness and aesthetic dimension