Entre pesos e medidas: as significações do corpo elaboradas por jovens frequentadores de academias de musculação.

Abstract

The search for adequacy to the standards of increasingly precocious beauty, encouraged the development of this field research. Therefore, the objective was to understand the body from the significations of the bodybuilding practice by young men aged 15 to 29 years old and residents of a neighborhood in the outskirts of Campina Grande. The research is based on discussions about body, youth, fitness culture and the social representations of physical beauty. The analysis was based on data collection, through qualitative methodology and inductive approach, from the Monographic method to the research procedures, and, from participant observation to the form of data gathering. In acting in the field, the semi-structured interview with 10 individuals served as an inspiration to discuss how aparencialism and the commodification of the body have influenced the lives of young people attending the bodybuilding academy. The research found that the bodybuilding practice allows young people to construct a healthy body, improve their physical appearance, and, consequently, increase social status. However, the Bodybuilding academy also configures a space whose relationships are established from the construction of identities, group formation, power dispute, and even informal attitudes.