You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You better work(out): FitBit, neoliberalism, and the thin ideal

The Fitbit manifests an ideology of healthism that prioritizes the pursuit of physical health above all else. The device’s design, use, and underlying epistemic frameworks transform exercise into data, labour, and knowledge, respectively. Using an accelerometer and green LED lights, the Fitbit translates the movements of human bodies into data. ‘Exercise’ is thus limited to what can be mechanically registered and algorithmically sorted into a pre-set category. This freely generated user data is aggregated into profitable datasets that Fitbit can sell to advertisers. Fitbit’s partnerships with insurers or employers further exploit workers by penalizing non-participants and users who generate undesirable data. Finally, the practice of activity tracking frames exercise as a health intervention and restricts the possibility of being absent from one’s body. Furthermore, Fitbit understands fitness through the lens of weight management, where the fit body is a conspicuously self-disciplined (read: thin) body. By framing fitness as a choice, individuals are held personally responsible for health outcomes, and being ‘unfit’ reflects a physical and moral failure. The insights produced by Fitbit thus restrain and shape users’ self-knowledge, perpetuating a cultural norm that understands ‘fit’ bodies as healthy, productive, and morally good.