What do 9th-grade primary education students say about media messages related to the fitness culture conveyed by beauty and health magazines?

Abstract

Based on the assumption that the Fitness Culture is present in print and digital media and circulates in society, we question what 9th-grade Primary Education students say about messages conveyed on the covers of beauty and health magazines. Narratives were produced from a focus group consisting of ten students from a municipal school in Rio Grande, RS, Brazil, which were later treated with Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) techniques. As a result, we composed two collective discourses entitled ‘Denial of invasive practices’ and ‘Legitimation of natural practices.’ In them, we show that students identify certain body models conveyed by the media, causing Fitness Culture manifestations to pervade several social spaces and play the role of counselors in the education of bodies. However, the students consider themselves satisfied with their own appearance, rejecting some practices considered invasive and legitimizing others seen as natural.