Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

DOI 10.1007/s11133-008-9120-2

McDonald’s at the Gym? A Tale of Two Curves®

Laura L. O’Toole

Published online: 9 December 2008

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract In this paper I present findings from an ethnographic study of interaction patterns
among members and workers in two Curves® franchises in different locations. Curves®
International markets rationalized fitness programs for women. Using a mixed methodology
of participant observation, staff interviews, and comparison of facilities’ official data, I
analyze these patterns in relation to the rules of the Curves® system and the possible factors
that contribute to the observable differences across the two facilities. I argue that despite the
corporate mandate for rapid and rationalized (McDonaldized) fitness, local Curves®
organizational cultures and client preferences may constitute internal resistance to the
McDonaldization process.

Keywords McDonaldization . Organizational culture . Gyms . Women’s fitness

Introduction

Image is everything. In particular, the bodies in which we encounter the world are an
elemental part of how of how others perceive us and how we orient ourselves to the various
settings in which we interact. An inordinate amount of time, money, and psychic energy is
wrapped up in working on our bodies, in our bodies. In fact, in contemporary consumer
culture, body maintenance and improvement have been elevated to the status of ideal
pursuits (Maguire 2001).
Scholars of the body locate historic diet and bodywork practices primarily in middle
class lifestyles, and suggest that fit bodies were both emblematic of social status and viewed
as predictive of a strong, progressive society as far back as the mid-nineteenth century in
the US (Maguire 2001; Bordo 1993; Bourdieu 1984). By the 1920s, however, fitness was
less associated with strong societies and increasingly linked to personal appearance—a
valuable component of human capital accumulation in an increasingly individualistic

L. L. O’Toole (*)
Department of Sociology, Roanoke College, 221 College Lane, Salem, VA 24153, USA
e-mail: otoole@roanoke.edu
76 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

society characterized by a competitive market economy. For women, the equation of the
female form with beauty and sexual excitation during the early twentieth century projected
the achievement of physical attractiveness as a route to “passive power” (MacNevin 2003,
p. 273), presumably within the marriage market.
Concepts of fitness and standards for female beauty have increasingly converged in the
consumer culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (MacNevin 2003).
From a sociology of bodies perspective, one major and compelling social force in the late
twentieth century is assuredly the concomitant development of increasingly mammoth
“appearance industries,” including cosmetics, dieting, and more recently a commercial
fitness industry (Maguire 2001) all linked to normative standards for women’s appearance.
For women, the pressure to measure up favorably against specific ideal standards of
feminine beauty fuels both personal and collective insecurities and corporate engines.
While historical notions of fit bodies as instruments of personal and societal progress are
applicable to both men and women, feminist research in the 1980s and 1990s focused on
the constraining power of beauty myths and the extent to which various forces in consumer
culture elicit the complicity of women in the project of constructing ideal bodies (Bordo
1993; Wolf 1990). With changing gender role constructions, women’s fitness is construed
as highly significant to their achievement in the labor market as much as it is in the pursuit
of personal relationships; yet, much of this emphasis on body construction has been
critiqued as unhealthy for women—both physically and psychologically. More recent
research, however, suggests that although twentieth century beauty norms for women were
more superficially linked to accomplishments in relation to the “surface of the body,”
women’s contemporary body projects are more likely to conflate beauty with health,
blurring boundaries of internal and external bodily concerns into a holistic concept of
fitness (MacNevin 2003).
Since the late 1990s, a particularly phenomenal development in the area of women’s health
and fitness has been the establishment and ubiquity of women-only gyms and fitness centers.
The niche leader in this area is Curves® for Women, now an internationally franchised
operation. Indeed, at this writing, Curves® International is the largest fitness franchise in the
world, focused simultaneously on the culturally defined fitness needs of women and addressing
these needs in a fully rationalized manner that is consistent with contemporary lifestyles and
women’s dual, time-consuming roles as workers and family caretakers.
In sociological parlance, Curves® can be understood as “McDonaldized” fitness. Ritzer
(2004) defines McDonaldization as “the process by which the principles of the fast-food
restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as
the rest of the world (p. 1),” a predominant force that characterizes twentieth and twenty-
first century institutional development. An extension of Weber’s theory of rationalization
(Freund 1968), the McDonaldization thesis specifies efficiency, calculability, predictability,
and control through non-human technology as the predominant features of social
organization in formal organizations and everyday life practices (Ritzer 2004, pp. 12–15).
This study is a tale of two Curves® among the many; a comparative analysis of the
characteristics of two quite different Curves® franchise operations in the Southeast US.
Specifically, I situate these franchises within an analysis that utilizes both local community
characteristics and the internal organizational cultures of the gyms themselves to shed light
on the durability of McDonaldization. I observe patterns of interaction among members and
workers at the two facilities and analyze these patterns in relation to the normative
expectations of the Curves® system and the relative “success” of the two franchises. In so
doing, I explore the possible factors that contribute to the observable differences in
achieving prototypical McDonalization across the two facilities.
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 77

Sassatelli (1999) suggests that “the way gyms are organized—both their environment
and the interaction rules operating during training—is as important for clients as the
culturally shaped ideals which sustain fitness culture” (p. 1). Using the Snow et al. (2003)
prescription for analytic ethnography as a significant route to extension and refinement of
theory, I deploy my data to extend Ritzer’s conceptualization through integrating
Sassatelli’s (1999) evidence that localized cultures matter. The significance of local
adaptations of Curves’® normative culture can contribute to our understanding of concrete,
human responses to the McDonaldization phenomenon, particularly within an organization
predicated simultaneously on the promise of a supportive internal community.
In light of its widespread institutionalization, resistance to McDonaldization is typically
characterized as subversive individual choice or as situated in alternative organizations and
services that often exhibit a social movement orientation such as Slow Food organizations
and cooperatives that originated in Italy and have spread throughout Europe and into the
US (Miele and Murdoch 2002; Ritzer 2004). Similarly, Ritzer’s (2004) analysis infers that
the persistence of Mom and Pop stores and non-chain establishments in the face of
widespread McDonaldization and Starbuckization is evidence of resistance, but that such
establishments are at considerable risk of being co-opted. I argue that despite the corporate
mandate for rapid and rationalized fitness, local Curves’® organizational cultures and client
preferences may constitute internal resistance to the McDonaldization process.

The gym and human experience

Gyms and fitness centers provide unique scenarios for understanding both personal and
collective experiences of bodywork, community norms, and organizational cultures.
Waquant (2004), for example, describes the inner-city gym where he conducted an in-
depth ethnographic immersion variously as a sanctuary, a school of morality, and the locus
and support of “pure sociation” for members (pp. 14–15, 37). Bodies and souls of young
men are transformed simultaneously through the intense regimen of training for and the
practice of boxing, as well as the collegiality of the gym community. In this case, the
socializing power of the gym, which Wacquant (2004) likens to a conversion experience,
can be linked both to the respite it provides from the streets and the sheer amount of time
participants dedicate to their individual and collective training in the “manly art”.
Smythe (1995) analyzes stories of embodiment shared among women in a predomi-
nantly female gym she calls Bodyworks that reflect impression management rituals
associated with meanings of true membership. Multiple themes of empowerment through
exercise complement the primary finding that Bodyworks women are deeply focused upon
their “essential corporality” (p. 13) and that true members work very hard on their bodies.
Localized norms and shared sentiments sustain interpersonal relationships and loyalty to the
club. Smythe also identifies an ideology shared more generally by members of fitness
communities: that effort and persistence are powerful predictors of success in overcoming
overindulgence, age-related, and even hereditary conditions that may disrupt the proffering
of a socially desirable self (Smythe 1995, p. 10).
Craig and Liberti (2007) analyze the organizational culture of a chain of women-only
fitness centers, outlining the social processes that function to feminize the gym. The setting,
routine, and intentional corporate discourse in numerous locations of GetFit are shown to
construct a comfortable environment for the subset of women who were formerly least
likely to either exercise or, particularly, to join a gym for this purpose. In a non-competitive
setting where large and/or aging women are socially constructed as normal, where
78 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

heteronormativity dominates discourse, and where circuit-based labor processes and

technologies shape experience, the GetFit image of femininity sustains traditional gender
hierarchies (Craig and Liberti 2007, p. 697). Here the focus is on weight loss, rather than
the physical exertion and masculinized fitness norms that dominate in more traditional
gyms. Informants did not report women trying to “distinguish themselves from others
through demonstrations of greater physical fitness” (Craig and Liberti 2007, p. 682). These
findings, insofar as they are contrasted to the emphasis on exertion and empowerment in the
stories analyzed by Smythe, lend credence to the significance of local normative practices
and discourses in shaping differentiated human experience.
Sassatelli (1999) uses frame analysis to compare local environments and interaction
patterns in two gyms to determine the extent to which members are socialized to persist in a
fitness regimen (p. 2). Gym environments exhibit complexity and variation in terms of the
spatial organization of training and changing areas, the modes of training equipment and
advice available, and the facility with which individuals can realize personal fitness
objectives. Sassatelli (1999) distinguishes between procedural and substantive aspects of
the gyms to discern that body ideals represent only a small part of the meanings created in
them (p. 5). Successful framing involves both affective and instrumental dimensions; clients
are more likely to persist when both objective goals and expressive needs are met—when
exercise is not only productive in relation to personal fitness, but also fun.
Taken together, these studies provide significant scaffolding for my analysis of how
women’s agency mediates the Curves® normative culture. Participant observation in gyms
and fitness centers has produced clear evidence of the influence of localized rituals,
discourses, and support systems in producing both individual responses to bodywork and
discernable organizational cultures. The extent to which substantive (McDonaldized)
concerns are integrated with the affective needs of members in particular franchise
operations, as well as the demographics of club members and communities provide
significant clues to the variety of cultural experiences one might encounter when working
out at Curves®, corporate models notwithstanding.

The Curves® story: Rationalizing fitness

The first Curves® opened in Harlingen, TX, USA in 1992; its original marketing strategy was to
target “small town USA,” where fitness opportunities for women were lacking. The system was
first franchised in 1995; by 2005 there were over 9,000 facilities on five continents, a
demonstrably rapid growth over the 10-year period (Canfield 2004). From its initial small town
origins, Curves’® rapid expansion has included the infiltration of urban centers. In Illinois, for
example, half of the 350 Curves® franchises are in the Chicago area and the rest are scattered
across the downstate. In the US, one in every four fitness clubs is a Curves® (Canfield 2004).
Curves® promotes itself as “the first fitness and weight loss facility dedicated to providing
affordable, one-stop exercise and nutritional information for women” (Curves® International
2005). The primary product is a 30 minute workout routine, completed on eight to 12
machines separated by “recovery squares,” and designed to accomplish both aerobic exercise
and strength training for every muscle group. It is designed to be “fast, fun and safe.” Indeed,
Gary Heavin, the founder of Curves® International, legitimates the sociological conceptual-
ization I offer above: “We are the McDonald’s of fitness centers in the US and Canada and we
can be the McDonald’s of fitness centers around the world” (Canfield 2004). The fully
rationalized workout routine—“the circuit”—is taught to women, by women, and promises
both weight and inch loss when practiced at least three times per week in conjunction with a
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 79

healthy diet. The standardized conceptualization of Curves® notwithstanding, a central

strategy was to offer this “30 minute fitness and common sense weight loss [program] with
the support of a community of women” (Curves® International 2005). The Curves® “comfort
zone” is typically situated within a no-frills 1,000–2,000 ft2, what Canfield (2004) calls the
“anti-gym”—ostensibly for women whose self-images render them gym averse, not unlike
the settings and clients described by Craig and Liberti (2007).
Every aspect of the Curves® system coheres with the McDonaldization thesis. Ritzer
(2004) links efficiency, choosing the optimum means to a given end, with the increased
pace of contemporary life (p. 43). Similarly, Rifkin observes (1987): “The artificial time-
worlds we have constructed have been accomplished by a radical new temporal value:
efficiency. Efficiency is both a value and a method.... [It] is the hallmark and the trademark
of contemporary culture” (p. 103). Speed is also the hallmark of Curves®. In conjunction
with researchers at Baylor University, the circuit protocol is consistently refined through
what may be best described as twenty-first century time-motion studies that designate the
most efficient use of 30 minutes to combine aerobics and strength training to benefit every
part of the female body. Popular music is actually re-recorded into medleys by sound-alike
artists, at faster speeds than the original versions, to accompany the workout.
Calculability is defined as encompassing both speed and numerical quantification, such that
quantity becomes a surrogate for quality (Ritzer 2004, p. 66). At Curves®, members are expected
to “weigh in” and have body fat and size of arms, waist, hips and thighs measured monthly.
Progress is recorded in member files and most clubs have mechanisms to communicate
especially favorable results of high achieving clients to others. Being able to make and post
these calculations legitimizes the rationalized and speedy protocol in comparison to “real” or
“regular” gyms, the terminology used by Craig and Liberti’s (2007) informants. In
computerized franchises, a screen displays how frequently a member has exercised since her
last weigh-in and prompts her to submit to bodily calculations on her monthly anniversary.
The third dimension of McDonaldization—predictability—refers to consumers’ prefer-
ences to know what is expected in most settings and at most times (Ritzer 2004, p. 86).
Clearly, there are no surprises at Curves®. “Unlike traditional gym equipment that needs to
be adjusted for each person and is typically sized for men, the Curves hydraulic equipment
was designed for women and tested by physiologists and biomedical engineers” (Curves
International 2007). The workout routine, the recently developed weight loss program (an
optional product for members), the forms and computer programs, promotions and
fundraisers, and even the décor of most facilities, are designed to be consistent across
franchises. There is only one protocol for all members; no personal trainers or routines are
sanctioned, nor are any other services or machines beyond those developed by Curves®
corporate offices permitted in franchise locations. Even the websites for all franchises are
the same, masking any idiosyncratic differences across locations.
Finally, the dimension of control through replacement of human with non-human
technology (Ritzer 2004, p. 106) is fully actualized in the Curves® system. The workout is
designed to incorporate only the specific technology of machines calibrated for women and
situated on the circuit. Success is measured by scales and body fat calculators. The staff is
trained in the proper use of the machines, which constitute the primary service offered by
Curves®, and the only service to which a member is entitled without paying extra fees. In a
section of the Curves® website designed for health professionals, the efficacy of this
technology is cited in the following claim:

The Curves program includes all five components of exercise—warm up and cool
down, cardio, strength training and stretching—and works every major muscle group
80 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

while keeping the heart rate in the target training zone. Researchers from the Baylor
University Exercise and Sports Nutrition Laboratory, led by Dr. Richard Kreider, Ph.
D., FACSM, found that during the Curves workout, women averaged about 65% of
their heart rate maximum—plenty to improve cardiovascular fitness but not so
strenuous as to discourage women from coming back (Curves ® International 2007).
Control is thus conceptualized in terms of both women’s bodies and the presumed
predilections of women’s behavior.

Methodology

Although there are many possibilities for the sociological analysis of a massive operation
such as Curves®, a small-scale ethnographic study provides a unique opportunity to assess
the extent to which the rationalization of fitness is possible, or even desirable, for
participants in the program. This is particularly true of ethnographic research in which the
researcher obtains both sociological data and personally transformative bodily experience,
where the body is fully integrated into the methodological framework of the study. This
experience, in Waquant’s (2004) words, shows “the necessity of a sociology not only of the
body, in the sense of object, but also from the body, that is deploying the body as tool of
inquiry and vector of knowledge” (p. viii).
The rationalized premise of Curves®, although ostensibly based upon scientific evidence
of best fitness practices, suggests a monolithic client who is fully invested in and
subordinated to the sort of methodical rationalization of lifestyle first predicted by Weber
and substantiated by Ritzer (2004). And, in fact, the promise of a quick, routinized method
of integrating exercise into an over-scheduled life was what attracted me to the organization—
not the practice of sociology.
I first became aware of Curves® when I heard colleagues at a professional meeting rave
about its compressed routine as fully compatible with the labor-intensive work of women
faculty in student-centered liberal arts institutions, and I inquired about it with interest. My
actual relationship with the organization began in March 2005 at the site I call Smalltowne
Curves®, one of three clubs owned and operated by a woman who purchased the territory
in 1998. This operation is in a state contiguous to where I reside. By the summer of 2005, I
was doing my circuits full-time in a mid-sized several hours away from Smalltowne, at a
franchise I call Southcity Curves®, through an arrangement between the two facilities. It
did not take long for fitness concerns to be subordinated to my sociological curiosity about
this phenomenon; I worked out three times per week, consistently for 6 months before
realizing that I was subconsciously sociologizing my experience. This included visits to two
additional Curves® franchises in my home state in the Mid-Atlantic region.
During my first 6 months of membership, I began to tone up and was certainly happy
about that. My experiences in the two clubs, however, elicited different emotional responses
beyond the fact that each contributed to my sense of increased personal well-being vis-à-vis
my fitness concerns. Consistent with a grounded theory approach, specific questions
emerged in my early observations of Curves® as a member who happens also to be a
sociologist. Does the one-routine-fits-all model withstand the importation from town to city,
from Main Street to urban mall in the US context? Does the McDonaldization model—
efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control—characterize the Curves® experience,
wherever women encounter it, or is it actually subverted in certain locales? In such cases,
might the very process of rationalizing and speeding up exercise undermine itself because the
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 81

quality of the experience does not fulfill the bodily needs of at least some participants? I refer
to bodily needs in a holistic sense that does not deploy a Cartesian mind/body dichotomy.
To explore these questions, I use a mixed methodology of participant observation,
interviews with Curves® staff, and comparison of both facilities’ official data. My
observational data derives from field notes taken during roughly 40 hours of observation in
each setting at different times of day, once approval for the study was received from
franchise operators and the institutional review board of my college. The site data include
information about the franchises during 2005: number of members; proportion of members
referred by other members; retention rates of members; aggregate weight and inch loss data;
and estimated demographic data on the age and race of members.
Comparisons of aggregate weight and inch loss data were complicated by numerous
factors, not the least of which is that Southcity Curves® was computerized at the time of the
study, while Smalltowne Curves® was not. My interviews were conducted in early 2006
and include three interviews from each facility: the owner-operator, the site manager, and
one full-time employee with least 2 years experience in the franchise where she worked at
the time of the study. The interviews included questions about their motivations to work in
the club, staff practices in relation to the maintaining the integrity of the routine, the nature
of interventions with clients, and their perceptions of the motivations of women to join
Curves®. We also discussed the nature of client and staff interrelationships and the extent to
which the franchise mission and activities cohere with those of Curves® International.
Interviews ranged from 40 minutes to 1 and 1/2 hours, were taped, transcribed and analyzed
in conjunction with field notes from participant observation in the two locales.

Two franchises, two settings

Community characteristics

According to data from the US Census Bureau (2006), Smalltowne is approximately 15

square miles in size, with a population (in 2004) of approximately 25,000. The population
contracted by nearly 2% between the decennial census and 2004. Its population is 91.3%
White and 5.9% African American, 1% Asian and less than 1% Latino and American
Indian combined. Nearly 20% of the population held Bachelors degrees or higher in 2000.
It is the sort of place where people leave their car engines running in the post office parking
lot while they go in to purchase services—often stopping to chat with others while inside. It
is by no means sheltered from McDonaldized goods and services, as evidenced by the
presence of the predictable swath of chain restaurants on Center Street, the self-checkout
stations at the supermarkets, and the formidable presence of both Starbucks and Walmart—
also on Center Street.
Southcity, in comparison, is nearly 10 times larger than Smalltowne in both area and
population. The population expanded by slightly more than 2% between April 2000 and
July 2003. Over 55% of Southcity is White, 37.4% is African American, 2.8% is Asian, and
4.4% identifies as Latino. By 2000, 33.9% of the population had attained a Bachelors
degree or higher. Both Smalltowne and Southcity are 52.8% female. Smalltowne is older,
though, with 16.8% of the population over 65, compared to 11.9% of Southcity. More
people in Smalltowne own their homes (US Census Bureau 2006). Many longtime residents
and transplanted northerners in Southcity are quite critical of the extent to which sprawl,
characterized as “random development,” has dominated the growth pattern in the city over
the last decade.
82 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

Smalltowne Curves®

Smalltowne Curves® opened in the year 2000, the third of three clubs opened by a 25 year-
old Smalltowne native who was initially interested in becoming a personal trainer. She
learned about Curves® from an article clipped by her grandfather, and within several
months was piecing together the funds to open a franchise. It is located inside the courtyard
of a shopping center on Center Street. The courtyard location affords it some amount of
privacy, although women must park in the main lot and walk to the storefront in their
workout garb.
When I first joined Smalltowne Curves®, it occupied one storefront of approximately
1,713 ft2. The circuit occupied most of the space in the main room; it was a long oval, with
the machines and recovery squares on the long sides no more than 8 ft across from each
other. The décor was consistent with the company’s corporate image and colors: lavender
walls with deeper purple trim, with stenciled women on the walls, dancing in pants whose
waistlines they had long ago outgrown. An Oprah Winfrey quote about self-actualization is
stenciled in gold over the doorway: “I believe that you are here to become more of yourself
and to live your best life.” On the far wall, a large poster—also done in lavender and purple—
describes each machine on the circuit and the benefits to be gained from its use.
An elevated L-shaped counter, painted white, provides a station for staff on duty
(generally one per shift) just inside the entrance and includes a display shelf for Curves®
nutritional supplements. There was a small shelf of health-related books, a lending library
for clients, nearby. Framed certificates that display health-related educational credentials of
the manager, and a certificate of appreciation for her service hang in close proximity.
Adjacent to the staff station was a balance-beam scale, a shelf that holds the binder of
clients’ weight and measurement data and the body fat calculator, and a glass-topped table
with chairs for consultations with current and prospective clients.
Beyond the table in the far corner of the room was a dance bar mounted on the wall to
aid in the post-circuit stretching regimen. Posters demonstrate the ten stretches that
complete the workout and the muscles to which they correspond. There was an American
flag on the wall and various whiteboards announcing weight and inch loss success stories,
bearing information about health and nutrition, and advertising the latest promotions or
events sponsored by the club. There were upbeat daily messages on the sign-in sheet and
plastic flowers on the tops of the pens provided to record your presence. Inspirational
posters, some provided by Curves® and others brought by staff, adorned the wall spaces not
otherwise occupied by stencils or whiteboards. A cramped backroom was partitioned into
an office, two dressing rooms, a bathroom and a small area with wicker furniture and a
coffee machine, cups, and accompaniments.
By November 2005, the club was undergoing renovations that included taking out the
wall to expand into the adjoining corner storefront. The new space is 3,062 ft2, painted
bright yellow with white trim and features a greatly expanded circuit that comprises
sections of the old and new spaces. A new, large seminar room now houses the coffee
stand, the wicker furniture and the glass-topped table. A smaller room has been set aside
just for stretching. In addition to the dance bar and the instructional posters, it has a large
decorative water fountain, and the rock music that blares in the main exercise room is
replaced by relaxation music. The lending library shelf now resides here. There is a second
bathroom and an office for the owner. Both the office and the seminar room have large
glass windows that open them up to the exercise room. Eclectic artwork—with angels and
moons and bright colors—by local women artists is hung on one of the walls in the exercise
room and a new, more formal wooden table and chairs is situated near the weight and
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 83

measurement area. The only vestiges of the old club in the main room are the staff station
and weight and measurement equipment, the posters explaining the machines, Oprah’s
encouragement, and the American flag.
Although the average age of the membership at Smalltowne Curves® is 50 years old,
there are women in most age groups ranging from teenagers through 80 years old. The club
had 469 members at the close of 2005, an increase of 60 members from the previous year.
Among that number were 324 new members; 264 women cancelled their memberships. The
manager conducted a survey several years prior to determine whether women’s experiences
at the club prompted non-renewal. The primary reasons that former members gave were
loss of interest in exercising, moving on to more rigorous programs or getting a family
membership in the YMCA, or financial reasons (e.g. “Why should I pay for something I am
not fully using?”). Given that they are not computerized, all of the data on weight and inch
loss was recorded by hand by my student assistant, who was given access to individual files
at the facility. The record keeping in this area was so sporadic that the data are not readily
comparable to the corresponding data from Southcity.

Southcity Curves®

Southcity Curves® opened in February of 2003, the first of two clubs owned and operated
by a family who relocated to the South from the Midwest. Its owners are a husband–wife
team whose daughter manages both of the clubs full time. Having learned about the concept
from a personal friend in late 2002, it only took several months for the owner couple to
research the opportunity, head to Waco for training and to “catch fire” about the system and
its benefits. It occupies a storefront in a shopping center in a relatively affluent section of
Southcity. The current space is approximately 2,300 ft2, with a large central circuit. The
original club was 1,100 ft2; when the lease for the adjacent store came up in October 2004,
the owners took it over and renovated. The staff station—designed in the standard white
painted L-shape—is to the left immediately as you enter the club. A computerized check-in
system reads members’ key-cards, welcomes them with information on how many
workouts they have completed during the month, and reminds them if it is time to weigh
in and be measured. Behind the staff station is a picture of the female owner and Curves®
founder Gary Heavin. Educational certificates of staff members hang on the front wall of
the station. A placard declaring the facility a Shining Star Club1 sits on the counter-top
(Smalltowne Curves® is not a member of this elite group). There are usually two staff
members working at all times, someone at the station to greet members and visitors, and
another watching the circuit.
As you enter the club, there are two small round tables and chairs on the right, with the
scale against the wall nearby. The tables hold club materials, a small machine to measure
clients’ body fat index, and mugs that hold writing implements; they are clearly work
tables, rather than tables for social activity. A row of cubbies for personal belongings stands
just past the intake tables, and the stretching area is just beyond the cubbies. There is a
bulletin board with information about the workout, a picture and fact sheet about Heavin,
some humorous inspirations to eat well, and other health related information. When there
are contests and promotions in progress, reminders always confront members in the

1
A Shining Star club is an elite club, selected by Curves® International. According to Curves® websites,
clubs that receive this designation are recognized as exemplars of Curves principles that provide an optimal
experience for their members.
84 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

stretching area. There are two private dressing rooms, two rest rooms, and a staff area for
supplies; there is no congregation space. The décor is standard Curves®: shades of lavender
and purple with a section in the far left corner dedicated to Curves® new clothing line,
nutritional products for sale, newsletters, health information and a white board with
motivations and announcements. A second bulletin board displays flyers announcing
community events of interest to women, business cards, etc.
As a visitor to this club, which was the case during this study, I am required to present a
travel pass at each visit. I had to repeat the intake process of providing health information
about myself before working out on the circuit, even though the same information is on file
at the Smalltowne Curves®. Travel passes are issued for periods of 1 month at a time.
Although I presumed after a month that I could just sign-in based upon recognition, I was
told by Helen, a staff member, that travel passes are required of everyone at all times. She
explained that it is part of the expectation of personal responsibility at the foundation of the
Curves® system for me to request a new travel pass when the old pass expires. I was still
required to present my pass at Southcity nearly 1 year later. During the summer, however,
when the Southcity Curves® became my regular club, I was issued a keycard to swipe upon
entering. It was promptly confiscated in August when I returned to work out in
Smalltowne.
When I first began exercising full-time at Southcity Curves®, a DVD of Gary Heavin
providing instructions about the proper use of machines ran continuously in the stretching
area. By late summer, it was no longer in use. After “convention” in the fall, a poster board
of photos of Heavin, the owner and manager, and various conference activities was posted
for members to peruse. Members were encouraged to sign-up for re-training on the
machines thereafter. During our interview, I learned from the owner that Baylor University
is the site of a 5-year study of the efficacy of the Curves® system. Any new findings that
result in changes to the system are conveyed to Curves® operators in training camps, at
convention, or in on-line classes and are then conveyed to members by “responsible”
franchisees. The old DVD was probably defunct.
Southcity Curves® had 715 members at the close of 2005. This compares with the 919
members in December 2004. Three-quarters of the members are between the ages of 40 and
69. There is more racial diversity in this club, although white women constitute the majority
of members. The walls at Southcity Curves® are decorated with cut-out stars with the name
of members, a quote from each about their experience at Curves® (I feel much better! I am
doing this for me!) along with an accounting of their weight and inch loss. The latter
numbers are updated each month after the member is evaluated for weight and inch loss by
staff. In the aggregate, these women have lost a total of 4,290 lb and 6,574 in., a whopping
10,864 units of better health.

Findings and analysis

Local cultures and member relationships

Smalltowne Curves®: Affective cultural orientation Despite the striking change in the
physical space, the most consistent and defining characteristic of Smalltowne Curves® is
the interactive energy of the club. I call it interactive energy to distinguish it from the
energy produced, for example, by the loud and ubiquitous aerobic-paced music (of
everything from country to hard rock to Broadway), and the cheerful taped voice that
repeats “Change stations now” every 30 seconds. Although there are daily fluctuations in
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 85

regard to the number of women who exercise at various times of day, it is the rare visit that
is devoid of joking, laughing, complaining about the machines—especially “Big Bertha,”
the shoulder press—and conversation about everything from family problems and
milestones to religion and politics. Both the manager and her assistant noted the existence
of four high attendance times that are characterized by clearly defined and tight-knit groups.
The assistant manager suggested, “most women come to interact. A few don’t.” The
manager believes that as many of half of the clients come to the club looking for
“socialization” with other women, not physical fitness per se.
I would like to say that it is all health and health-related. And I think it starts out that
way. But I think human nature...I’ve done some observation over the last 7 or
8 years...they get tired of the same thing day in and day out, so what brings them in
here is their friends and maybe the book club, or there is a speaker coming or to join
the Relay for Life team.

All three women I interviewed agreed that the women who join Curves® have no interest in
joining a traditional gym where most clients are already fit, where there is little assistance,
where there is little privacy from men, and where no one cares about them.
For the first several months, I primarily worked out between 7:00 and 8:00 AM, where a
core group of eight to 12 women work out most every day—some before work, others who
are not in the labor force—before getting along with the schedule for the day. Although
new members have “intruded” into the world of the morning ladies over the course of the
10 months chronicled here, their dominance of the circuit and definition of the atmosphere
sets the tone for the entire club, as it does for any given day. These women are always there,
completing spotty routines and usually adjourning to the back room for coffee rather than
stretching out after they are finished with the circuit, if they even finish the circuit. Through
my interviews I learned that they, not the franchise, bought the equipment and supplies for
their morning refreshment, and they are responsible for maintaining the coffee area.
As a newcomer, the morning ladies were very friendly to me, even though I am sure I
projected the idea that I was there to work out (usually starting my circuits with a lot of
space between me and other clients as opposed to specifically choosing a station that would
allow me to chat the entire time as the others do). They clearly looked out for each other;
when one regular didn’t come for 2 weeks, everyone began asking about her to the extent
that the assistant manager called to check up. Within the first months I was there, they
planned a birthday party for one of the staff members, organized and managed a silent
auction for the American Cancer Society, and volunteered to march shopping carts filled
with donated food items through the town to the local food pantry. When I came back in
late August after my summer in Southcity, more than one of the morning ladies asked me
where I had been. As the manager observed:
The morning group, they are always out here laughing and carrying on. A couple
years after they were here I asked, ‘how long have you known each other?’ And they
said, ‘As long as we’ve been at Curves®.’ I thought they were friends before they
came here. It just kind of took me aback.
I had operated on the same assumption, given the small, tight-knit community of
Smalltowne and the quality of the ladies’ interactions.
Later each morning, a similar group of slightly older women, with fewer of their
members in the paid labor force, take over the club. They are similarly engaged. The
morning I interviewed the club owner, these women’s conversations drowned out the
music. As we sat in the office talking, I observed women scattered about the main room,
86 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

some on the circuit exercising and talking, others in the coffee room talking, still others
standing around and talking. At one point, the owner interrupted our interview and said,
“Look at these ladies! They are out there hugging each other!”
In the fall of 2005, I began working out at least once a week in the evening. The evening
group is definitely more focused on the workout, by and large, but there is no lack of
energy or familiar interaction. Women are hailed by exercisers as they enter and often chat
on the circuit. This group is much more loyal to the routine, including the pulse checks and
stretching that a majority of the morning ladies has abandoned in favor of minimizing the
circuit so they can get into the back room for coffee or to work on the latest charity event.
Even in the evening, there are couples or small pods of women who come together
(occasionally mother/daughter pairs); yet, those of us who venture in outside of our more
typical times are embraced as members of the group.
It is clear from interviewing the staff that their own orientations toward caring and
community building help facilitate the network of support at the Smalltowne club.
Although they are committed to the Curves® system, they are reticent to intervene on the
circuit, except in cases of clear danger to health, or in the case of training new members.
The manager discussed her strategy of trying to change behaviors via praise on days when
morning groups are adhering particularly well to the routine, or to use the opportunity of a
new training to re-socialize the older members by example. In the end, she admits that there
is lax adherence to many of the strictures of the corporate model; yet, she claims that the
sheer presence of women who wouldn’t otherwise be exercising, but are getting some level
of physical activity 4 to 6 days per week, is bound to be having some effect. She speculates
that the social experience could be as important to their well being as the machines: “its
mind, body and soul—who’s to say what’s going to make a person healthy?”
The two on-site staff members’ discourse was replete with rhetoric of caring and
community, both building community in the club and contributing to the community
outside of it. Following the four tenets of McDonaldization is not the normative mandate of
the local franchise culture. Indeed, one of the machines was frequently not calibrated such
that you could easily work out on it. For one nearly 2-week period, it was just pulled out of
the oval and we bypassed it on our workout. As the young assistant manager told me, “I’ll
tell you one thing that these women come out in droves for. And that is when someone is in
need. The needy families, if we have anything like that. Oh, dear. The support is
tremendous.” Implicit in her statement is the acknowledgment that personal fitness goals
were not the primary motivation for many of the club’s members. When I went in to work
out the Wednesday evening following our interview, I noticed a new fundraiser. People
were asked to purchase a chance to win a Curves® t-shirt to help defray the costs of cancer
treatment for a local man. Although obviously a brand new—and not officially sanctioned—
cause, the container was already filling with tickets.
When asked to compare the level of community in the Smalltowne Curves® to others
she has visited, the manager replied, “I love my club.... I have been to other clubs, and its
just not there.” The assistant manager shared a story that conveys the depth of the bond
among members:
We had a lady who came in a couple of weeks ago and she had just lost a good friend.
And she said, “I knew I could come here.” And it’s the first place she came when her
friend passed away. And when we are hit with something like that, its like, wow this is
much more sometimes than what we see. And so she came back here and the ladies
that were already back here having coffee, they just brought her right in and just cried
with her and let her get out some of her pain.
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 87

A week later when I interviewed the manager, she told me that one of the younger
morning ladies who comes in before work had approached her at church. One of the older
women’s daughters had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. The
member had told her, “I thought you would want to tell the morning group. They would
probably want to send her a card.”
The major event of the spring was a baby shower for the assistant manager, who was due to
deliver her first child in May. Signup sheets for the pot-luck healthy food buffet were posted
on the seminar/coffee room window three-weeks in advance. One week before the shower,
one of the morning ladies who had originally thought she could not attend was thrilled to
find out the date was not in conflict with her other obligation. “Yes!!” she gushed, raising a
clenched fist in excitement. Although I was unable to attend the event, I was given a full
account the following Monday morning. Seventy-five women had shown up for the shower,
overflowing from the seminar room and filling the facility to capacity. Two van-loads of
gifts were packed up after the shower. This level of support from these women clearly
identifies them more as friends and/or surrogate mothers to the young family than as clients.
Several weeks later, I was in the stretching room with one of the regular morning ladies
who was complaining about her weight. “I’ve gained 30 pounds” she told me. “Since
when?” I asked, since she didn’t look like she had changed much since I had been at the
club. “Oh, over the last 3 years. Walking is the only thing that works for me,” she replied as
she began to move out to the coffee room. “This is just a perk.” Following Sassatelli’s
analysis, it is the affective dimension that is clearly a primary motivation for membership
and retention in this club. Thirty minutes, in and out, is hardly the draw for the morning
ladies at Smalltowne Curves®.

Southcity Curves®: A McDonaldized local culture Southcity Curves® is a very different

place. There are still pairs of women who workout together (more so during lunch time) and
an atmosphere of friendliness in the club. Members are acknowledged by staff coming in
and going out and women interact with common courtesy on the circuit. When I asked the
manager to describe the club as a workplace, she said,
Very energetic. The energy from people on the circuit. The energy from the people coming
in wanting to learn the program who are excited about finding something that can finally
help them. The energy from the music that is always playing....a happy place to be.

My perception of the tone and energy level at this club, however, is less generalizable. It
seems, rather, to be more variable and modified by individuals on the circuit, rather than a
constant that might be attributed to the culture of the place. The effervescence of specific
personalities or certain staff members’ interventions sporadically lifts the collective spirits
of the women present. For example, one woman who typically exercised late in the
afternoon was one of the few women interested or able to raise the energy level on the
circuit. She called out to other women, or sang along with the music, and had the capacity
to make otherwise very private women loosen up during her 30 minutes at the club. When
she completed her stretching and left, the energy level decreased appreciably. In my field
notes, I write that most of the women who exercise with her seem to be put off by her
ability to alter the environment. She takes up more space than her station allows; she fills
the room. Similarly, one of the young part-time workers who was about to graduate from a
local college was careful to engage women on the circuit with personal chat, rather than
solely fitness-focused conversation. Sometimes she would work out on the circuit with
members, chatting with them as they moved from station-to-station.
88 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

Conversely, the extent of the individualistic focus of the members at Southcity can be
demonstrated by another, more common, observation I made at the club. It was around
11:00 AM, before the lunch crowd of working women comes in to do their workouts. There
were eight older women on the circuit. A young part-time worker was behind the counter and
one of the long-time staff members was working with a particular woman on the machines.
There wasn’t any interaction beyond this. The other women on the circuit did their routines
joylessly, even though the music was as loud and upbeat as ever. Eye contact was scarce. I
was struck by the extent to which they resembled automatons—this same demographic of
women as the groups that would have been hugging and howling in Smalltowne.
One staff member, the longest-term employee of the club who I call Helen, was
particularly well known for intervening as women worked out, usually critiquing a position
or their use of equipment. Occasionally, she asked women on the circuit to cheer for a member
who had just been re-evaluated to have lost a significant amount of weight or inches or body fat
over the course of the month. Generally, however, when either Helen or the owner-operator was
present, the focus was on the routine, and only the routine. One day, an older woman observed
me sitting at one of the small tables waiting to talk to the manager as she was picking up her
belongings to leave. We smiled at each other and she said, “This does me in...sometimes it is
really boring. Helen is really persnickety unless you do all that!” The ubiquitous focus on
precision and efficiency of the workout, moving folks along so that the integrity of the
30 minute workout is preserved for all, is clearly not always fun.
When I interviewed Helen, she suggested that the club had a different atmosphere prior
to renovation:
When the circuit was smaller, there was a lot more interaction. It looks good, but it
just occurred to me that this is metaphoric of bigger houses, bigger everything...if
there is an energy, an environment that feels friendly…it takes effort always.
When I asked the manager whether women at the Southcity club look forward to
interaction with other women, she replied:
Some of them do. Some of them come in with friends. They come in as a group and
support each other outside of the club. Lunch people usually come in together. We
once had a mother, her two daughters and the grandmother.
From my observations, however, it appears that most women in this club who socialized
on the circuit did so with others with whom they had pre-existing relationships outside of
the club. For these women, working out was just a good way to coordinate extra time spent
together. When I asked the owner about whether she thought members looked forward to
interacting with other women, she answered this way:

Absolutely! And that is where we have to watch that it doesn’t turn into a social club;
that its chat, chat, chat and they aren’t focused on their workout.

The owner’s insistence on strict adherence to corporate regulations set the tone for the
club. None of the three women I interviewed from the Southcity franchise shared stories of
outreach among women who didn’t know each other prior to joining the club. Nor did I
personally observe mechanisms for building relationships at this club beyond seeing and
acknowledging familiar faces during the half-hour, three times per week at the club
specified in the Curves® system or sporadic recruitment to participate in nationally
sanctioned fundraisers. The mantra of “fast, fun, and safe,” within a total commitment to
the system, drives the management strategy at Southcity. The need to apply the Curves®-
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 89

specific principles of McDonaldization appears to have a defining effect on how the club is
experienced by members; to subvert the system, according to the owner-operator, would be
dangerous for retention.

It’s 30 minutes—you’re in and out in 30 minutes. And if you are hanging around and
chatting and now its 45 minutes, and then an hour and pretty soon that’s your
perception. That every time I go to Curves® it takes me an hour and now all of a
sudden I don’t have an hour in my day that I can devote to Curves®.

The owner does deploy the rhetoric of community in her description of the product and
the sort of culture that Curves® is committed to creating among members. But as Helen
mused at the end of our interview,
I went to the Curves® in Jebsboro [small, rural town]. Everybody knows everybody; it
was a small circuit. It felt good in there. They weren’t doing it right...but as we’re
talking I can see that there is much more room for community at this club. We were
doing it good at first when we were small.
All three of the women I interviewed in Southcity are dedicated professionals, with the
same passion for their work as the women in Smalltowne. Enforcement of the routine, in
conjunction with the cultural dynamics of the larger community, seems to have an
interactive effect in defining the organizational cultures of the two franchise operations.

Conclusion: Theorizing responses to rationalized fitness

As I have shown, the Curves® program is predicated on both the contemporary cultural
trends that constitute McDonaldization and the orientation to time that both Ritzer and
Rifkin critique. The most compelling finding of this research, however, ultimately poses a
dilemma for Curves® International. Both of the franchises studied might be considered
successful, but in very different ways. While it seems evident from the Baylor research that
the 30 minute workout must be performed in all of its standardized and scientifically-
managed detail to be efficacious for an individual body, building community takes time.
The organizational culture of Smalltowne Curves®, nestled as it is in a town with no
strangers, might predict the formation of primary relationships among clients who interact
recurrently; affective needs of members might be equally salient in producing the
resistance to McDonaldization I observed at the club. Despite the perception, by at least
one staff member, that the Southcity club shows the promise of providing a supportive
community, my data and my experience suggest the organizational culture supports the
reproduction of a McDonaldized service. This would be consistent with the stated goals
of the owner and manager, which are clearly more oriented toward being a Shining Star
Club—exemplary in the area of rationalized practice and performance standards—than a
social club. Although they want clients to have fun, the orientation toward efficiency,
calculability, predictability, and control shapes the atmosphere of the club and the
interactions among staff and members. Being a Shining Star means being McDonaldized
and member retention and behavior on the circuit suggest affective needs are secondary to
procedural concerns.
In Smalltowne, the owner claims that they are practicing “95% Curves®” but the
organizational culture, framed as it is around both a service orientation and commitment to
client integration, results in less persistence in enforcing the rules of the system across the
90 Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91

board. The club’s resistance to McDonaldization can be observed in the non-alignment of

its décor, both in terms of style and the incorporation of a seminar room that extends the
meaning of membership beyond 30 minutes, three times per week, as well as the
independent programming it provides. Smalltowne Curves® staff resist McDonaldization
by facilitating relationships through providing additional time-consuming programs for
members (including the book club, the seminar series, the fundraisers, a Men’s Night
program during Valentine’s week) and allowing spontaneous extra-curricular activity (the
baby shower, frequent fundraisers organized by the morning ladies in the back room).
Calculability and control by non-human technology are not primary characteristics of the
experience in this franchise; yet its success in attracting clients is difficult to refute. This
divergence is paying off in terms of a growing membership and a clearly defined culture of
community which also means that staff is putting in time over and above their normal shifts
as well.2
Smalltowne Curves’® organizational culture is more consistent with Rifkin’s (1987) concept
of an empathetic time world, an orientation toward integrating selves back into the temporal
bonds of larger communities of life (p. 210). My findings also support Sassatelli’s (1999)
insistence that local cultures, rather than either individuals’ goal orientation or generalized
fitness norms, provide the impetus to persist in gym membership and that framing that is
attentive to members’ affective needs is crucial. Moreover, my observations suggest substantive
rationality—the significance of value-rational action over instrumental concerns—may operate
to subvert McDonaldization within the Curves® system. Both members and staff at
Smalltowne Curves® conflate fitness and general health concerns; membership for regulars
is predicated on spending time well in excess of 30 minutes three times per week. Many
members’ time is spent in exercise and in the sort of community activity that sustains
relationships and staves off culturally induced alienation.
Being the “McDonalds of Fitness” is the primary goal of Curves® International,
although there is also a claim of providing a supportive community. But it is presumed that
women will not continue memberships if they spend too much time at a facility that
promises a quick and easy fitness regimen for increasingly “scheduled” lives. Building and
maintaining community is time-consuming, however; it is antithetical to the methodology
of McDonaldization generally, and Curves®, specifically.
Future ethnographic and epidemiological research among members, staff, and in
facilities across the Curves® network could most assuredly shed more light on several
lingering questions. First, are certain women more likely than others to resist the rigid
structure of McDonaldized exercise, and if so, does the nature of their individual values and
lifestyles interact with local franchise cultures to predict levels of resistance or even rates of
retention? Do women with different orientations toward community interaction select
different facilities or times of day to perform fitness rituals? Can cross-cultural variations be
observed that contribute to our understanding of the acceptance or modification of

2
Putnam’s (2001) claim that civic engagement and community life has been increasingly eroded during the
twentieth century hinges on a critique of the forces of rationalization as they become embedded in
contemporary cultural practices, including in the transformation of gender roles in post-industrial society.
Michael Schudson (1996) suggests in his critique of Putnam’s primary theses that new configurations of
social service activities and phenomena such as memberships in family fitness centers show that civic
engagement may not be a thing of the past. My observations at Smalltowne Curves® may also provide some
evidence to support Schudson. Indeed, the levels of internal community building and community service at
the club were stunning. These activities occur, however, as clear resistance to the concept of Curves® as the
locus of McDonaldized fitness.
Qual Sociol (2009) 32:75–91 91

rationalized concepts of fitness in a globalizing franchise operation? Understanding the

relative significance of community engagement, or at least the satisfaction of affective
desires, in the experience of good health is equally important. McDonald’s may be at the
gym, but clearly all of the women who are drawn to women-only fitness clubs are not
compelled by promises of efficient and effective weight-loss in the least possible amount of
time. Perhaps, consumer culture notwithstanding, image is not everything.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Javier Auyero and three anonymous reviewers for their
immensely helpful comments on an earlier iteration of this article. Jessica Schiffman and Margie Kiter
Edwards read several drafts with, as always, critical eyes and unflagging support.

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Laura L. O’Toole is Professor of Sociology at Roanoke College. She is the co-editor of Gender Violence:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives (NYU Press, 2007, 2nd edition). Her current research is an ethnographic study
of occupational identity formation for which she follows two cohorts of massage therapy students through
their professional training program at a regional community college.