The Muscle Trade: The Use and Supply of Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs

by Nick Gibbs

Overview

The health and fitness industry has experienced a meteoric rise over the past two decades, yet its slick exterior conceals a darker side. Using ethnographic data from gyms, interviews, and social media platforms, this book investigates the growing consumption of image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs), the motivations behind their use, and their role in masculine body image.

Addressing a gap in the literature, Nick Gibbs also interrogates both the offline and digital drug supply chains with important insights for IPED harm reduction practitioners, law makers and policy advisors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529227949
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
Publication date:	12/12/2023
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nick Gibbs is Lecturer of Criminology in the Department of Social Sciences at Northumbria University.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Situating the Research

3. Reimagining the Health and Fitness Industry as a Site of Deviant Leisure

Part 1 – Consumption

4. Desire and Dissatisfaction in the Gym

5. Instrumentality, Competitiveness, and Hyper-conformity

6. The Pleasures of Consumption: The Curious Case of Phillip

7. #Ripped: Social Media, Prosumption, and Bodily Desire

Part 2 – Supply-side

8. Production

9. The Offline IPED Marketplace

10. The IPED Market in Transition: Commercialization, Normalization, and Digitization

11. The Online IPED Market

12. Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This brilliant ethnography offers much-needed insight into the underpinnings of contemporary gym cultures and enhancement drug consumption from a theoretically informed and extensively researched perspective. An essential text.” Luke Turnock, University of Lincoln

"Nick Gibbs injects himself into the underbelly of the UK's booming health and fitness industry - 'The Muscle Trade' takes readers on a journey through the consumption and supply of IPEDs, shedding light on the darker aspects of bodily modification culture." Timothy Piatkowski, Griffith University

Editorial Reviews

This brilliant ethnography offers much-needed insight into the underpinnings of contemporary gym cultures and enhancement drug consumption from a theoretically informed and extensively researched perspective. An essential text.” Luke Turnock, University of Lincoln

"Nick Gibbs injects himself into the underbelly of the UK's booming health and fitness industry - 'The Muscle Trade' takes readers on a journey through the consumption and supply of IPEDs, shedding light on the darker aspects of bodily modification culture." Timothy Piatkowski, Griffith University

From the Publisher