The Social Imaginary of Fitness is filled with many symbols and images.  It starts with the Gym.  The most popular image of the Gym is the glass front with the walking machines in a row, visible from outside.  Through the glass, we can see men and women in fitness gear running or walking briskly with an intense focus.  The machines, the clothes, the sweat and the focus are all signs of commitment to fitness as an ideology that is absorbed into and manifests as a way of life.  

Movie Stars and Sports Stars feature images of themselves on their Insta pages, working out intensely in the gym.  Thus, they also endorse Fitness as a way of Life.

This image and the associated promise are intensely appealing to a wider audience who wish to join the movement in some way.  However, hope, desire and aspiration are not the same as commitment. That’s why many people have the experience of having taken up a gym membership and paid for it, and then not using the gym at all.  Gym owners can attest to the share of unused memberships in their revenue.  Thus, the gym membership becomes a symbol of the hope of fitness rather than a serious commitment to fitness.  The hope of fitness certainly contributes to building a neat revenue stream for a gym franchisee or owner.  

So much for the symbolic value of Fitness.  Let’s see what the data says in terms of claimed behaviour.  In metros and Tier 1 cities, the claimed behaviour looks like this:

42% of men and 37% of women claim that they go to the gym as a most often behaviour.  In terms of age groups, in the 15-25 band, 40% claim gym use as a most often behaviour.  This jumps to 48% in the 26-40 and 46% in the 41-55 age band.  Above the 55-year age band, the claimed regular use drops to 26%.  

This claimed behaviour can be interpreted in two ways.  Since this is just a claim made to an interviewer and it is not verified or validated in any way, we can read the claimed behaviour as an index of aspiration.  With two-fifths of interviewees claiming most often and perhaps another two-fifths claiming sometimes use, this indicates that the Fitness Imaginary and ideology has established itself in metro cities as something desirable and an integral part of the modern way of life.  You can’t be a modern person and have no acquaintance with a gym.  

If it is indeed true that  40-50% of the urban population between 15-55 years visits gyms most often and has absorbed a commitment to fitness into their way of life, then this augurs very well for the health of the nation.  

Apart from age, is gym usage correlated with income levels?  It appears to be so as among those earning over Rs. 10 lakh p.a., the claimed most often gym use is as high as 47% vs. 38% among those earning less than Rs. 10 lakh p.a.

Fitness culture has a couple of other symbolic anchors, apart from the Gym.  They are Yoga, Walking and Running.  Yoga classes are popular in cities, with classes being offered in various formats – group live classes, online classes (post pandemic) as well as one-on-one instruction.  The aspirational value and cool quotient of Yoga have got a huge fillip with our PM conducting yoga sessions in public spaces, both in India and abroad.  The Yogi in the Padmasana pose is the most popular image of Yoga which every Indian would remember.

Walking as a fitness activity is a recent urban phenomenon among the educated, professional and middle classes.  Among working-class people in cities and towns, as well as rural folk walking is a way of commuting, of getting from place to place.  It is the no cost way of commuting, requiring the walker to brave the elements – sun, heat, dust, pollution, traffic, potholes on the pavements and much else.  However, the ‘early morning walk’ in the nearby park or walkway in the condo of women and men walking solo or in groups is a very recognizable image for metro residents.

Running as a fitness activity has gained a lot of traction in the past 10-15 years, with Marathons being organized in many cities.  The Runner hitting the road with their water bottle attached is the most popular image in public perception.  Many Runners are also Influencers on Instagram, aiming to popularize the sport and bring in more runners into the flock.

So how many people do yoga, walk and run?

Among men, 47% do yoga most often as their fitness practice, while among women 58% do yoga most often.  Clearly, yoga is more popular among women when compared to men.  The popularity of yoga increases with age: 40% most used among 15-25 vs. 58% most used among 41+ years.  Counter-intuitively, the appeal of Yoga is greater among upper income groups – 57% among 10 lakh+ p.a. income earners and 49% among the <10 lakh p.a. income group.

The popularity of jogging and running is quite evenly distributed by gender, age and income levels at ~48% most often activity.

Walking is the most popular form of fitness activity in metros, with near universal traction and uniform appeal across gender, age and income levels, with ~69% claiming most often behaviour. 

An interesting question to consider is how deeply this Fitness Culture filtered through the town classes.  If we compare Tier 2-3 towns vs. the metros and Tier 1 towns, would we find similar levels of aspiration, adoption and commitment to Fitness?

Claimed most often gym use is 21% with a skew to men 24% vs. women 18%.  Expectedly the highest usage is in the 15-25 years at 28% and 10 lakh+ income at 24%.  Clearly, in Tier 2-3 towns, the Gym Imaginary is not a driving force of fitness aspiration the way it is in the metros.

Yoga is much more popular than Gymming at 39% of most often behaviour, going up to 49% among 55+ year olds and 43% among 10 lakh+ p.a. earning households.

Walking for exercise and fitness doesn’t seem to be a part of the Fitness Imaginary of small towns, with just 36% saying walking is the most often practice and 26% for jogging.

Small town fitness culture seems to be more anchored into Yoga, perhaps because of their greater rootedness in Indian culture and the fact that doing Yoga does not require extensive facilities like the Gym or access to walking/jogging tracks.  Perhaps the roads in small towns are too crowded and busy to be able to walk/run on them as a form of exercise and fitness practice and walking is still thought of as a commuting activity than as a fitness activity.

When we consider the Social Imaginary and the claimed behaviour together, we can conclude that Fitness culture has taken greater root in metro India and small town India is not there yet.