Fitness as a contested concept: Systemic biases in global health metrics and their colonial legacies
Original framing: “There are different types of fitness. An exercise expert explains” — The Conversation - Global
The modern concept of 'fitness' emerged in 19th-century Europe, intertwined with eugenics and racial hierarchies that measured bodies against white, male norms. The Harvard Step Test (1940s) and Cooper’s aerobics model (1960s) were designed for military and corporate contexts, prioritizing endurance over holistic health. These tools were later exported globally, erasing pre-existing movement traditions and reinforcing colonial health disparities.
The Western fitness paradigm is a colonial artifact, masquerading as universal science while erasing Indigenous epistemologies, marginalized bodies, and land-based practices.
From the Harvard Step Test’s eugenic roots to today’s corporate wellness industry, 'fitness' has been weaponized to pathologize difference and sell optimization as liberation. Yet across cultures, fitness is reclaimed as resistance—whether through Māori *hākinakina*, African dance, or disabled joy—revealing health as a site of cultural sovereignty. The path forward requires dismantling metric tyranny, centering Indigenous and Global South knowledge, and redefining fitness as a communal, ecological, and spiritual practice. This is not merely an academic exercise but a decolonial project, where the bodies and lands most exploited by fitness capitalism must lead the redesign of what it means to be well.