Sociological explanation of the relationship between lifestyle and body management among women in Sanandaj city

Problem outline

    In the current state known as late modernity, where the lines and boundaries of social distinctions are formed by lifestyles and cultural consumption, the dimensions, levels, qualities and methods of body management [1] have become very complex and important. In general, in this era when the world has become a multicultural phenomenon [2], advanced technology has pushed people out of industrial production plants, time and space have changed significantly due to communication and high-speed transportation systems, and the borders between nations, people, and cultures have become permeable, we can see the imperceptible but real turning of social thought's focus on issues related to the body, citizenship, information system, globalization [3] and cybernetic worlds. Let's mention (Saidman, 1386: 357). Today, the body is a part of the concept of "self" and functional and structural factors and enables interaction with the environment and other people (Lemon, 1991: 127). Physical attractiveness is one of the topics that have found new standards in this era and is considered one of the factors that shape people's relationships, so that the management of the body has become more important and significant, and various health behaviors such as bodybuilding, diets, sports equipment, and various cosmetics to take care of The body has appeared (Rezaei et al., 1389: 142). Having a beautiful body in the current situation is a sign of social values ??and to some extent a mechanism of social power and control. Studying beauty and human body is one of the important issues of today's society. The origin of this evolution is that in pre-modern societies, the individual was impossible in the community and the choice and change of the existing conditions did not find a place to emerge like in today's modern societies (Khwaja Nouri et al., 2010: 22). In the modern era, the type of managing the appearance of the body as an identity indicator has found a key role in people's perception of themselves and the judgments of others about their appearance (Ebrahimi and Ziapour, 1391: 126). Members of a social group may convince each other to build socially acceptable and similar bodies by judging, rewarding, and punishing people with different sizes, shapes, weights, and muscles (Jones and Hayes, 2009: 7). This sensitivity is more among women and young girls than men (Huang et al., 2007: 7). Many women are not satisfied with their physical appearance and body (Spitzer et al., 1999: 547). For women, body image and slender body are associated with attractiveness, self-control, social skills, career success, and youth (Grogen, 2000: 356). From a sociological point of view, it is evident that the control and supervision applied to women's bodies serves to strengthen and reproduce the social order; According to Foucault's interpretation, women's body as a social capital changes its shape under the influence of the social requirement that determines its value and form, and this change in shape contributes to the change of their status or social status (Mahdavi and Abbasi Esfjir, 2019: 132). In general, the body is a phenomenon that is socially constructed (Krieger and Smith, 2004: 941). Based on this, considering the growing importance of the body and its management methods in the modern era, on the one hand, and the increasing prominence of this phenomenon in our society and the obvious conflict of its dimensions and components, such as girls' and women's make-up and the use of tight and short and revealing clothes, with religious teachings and the social, normative, customary and legal context (Fatihi and Ikhlasi, 1387: 10), the present research seeks to explain the relationship of body management with one of the most important Influential variables in the construction of social boundaries, i.e. lifestyle, and in general seeking to explain the mechanism of body construction in the context of the objective state of relationships and social relations.

In recent decades in Iran, body management and fitness as a measure of beauty and cultural action have attracted the attention of women and girls, and taking action to comply with diet and activities related to body management has become one of the concerns of many Iranian girls and women. (Ahmedania, 25:1385). The large amount of research related to the body in recent years also confirms the fact that the body has become a social and cultural issue that increases the scope of attention to it and its effects every day. Body management means continuous monitoring and manipulation of the body's external and visible features.With the help of indicators such as weight control through exercise, diet and medicine, medical manipulation (nose and plastic surgery) and the importance given to health and cosmetic care and daily bathing, hairdressing, makeup or face correction, use of cologne and fragrances, nail makeup and colored lenses for women, this concept has become a cumulative index, which is a variable with three levels of low-level supervision, medium-level supervision and high-level supervision. The body and physical attractiveness are among the issues that have direct effects on the behavior of individuals and groups, so that body management as a phenomenon that has its own social, cultural and political effects has become a common and important matter. The increase in emphasis on the body is related to several factors, which include: "Politicization of the body, demographic factors, changing the nature of disease, increasing consumer culture, development of new technologies related to the body, new transformations related to the movement from modernity to late modernity, and considering the body as a project or as an unfinished social and biological phenomenon that is changing" (Mohved Vadigran, 2019: 80).

Humans present themselves by displaying their bodies in their daily interactions with each other. The perception of the body can have profound effects on the way people think and feel and give people a state of confidence and self-esteem to face the social world. The body has always been a source of pleasure, health, beauty and youth. But at the same time, it has been considered potentially as a place of pollution, disease, disorder and disorder, confusion and unhappiness, dangerous and terrifying, which makes it necessary to pay attention to the systematic maintenance of the body and various health behaviors such as bodybuilding, diets, sports equipment and various cosmetics for the care and management of the body. On the other hand, the media and mass communication tools provide ideal models of the body and physical condition; Health promotion programs are filled with images of beautiful, young, attractive, fit and lean bodies that everyone dreams of having. Bodies have become a vehicle for acquiring new identities as well as a means for gaining dignity, prestige, distinction and participation. Meanwhile, women have always paid more attention to their body and physical appearance compared to men. Women experience more dissatisfaction with their bodies, and worrying about their bodies has become one of the most important concerns and preoccupations in their lives. Therefore, women devote a lot of money, time and energy to activities related to body management to make their appearance ideal.

The way of attitude towards the body, its management and control is influenced by lifestyles. The concept of lifestyle after it was first developed in the works of Weber, Simmel and Veblen, fell out of prosperity for a while and remained silent in sociology for many years, and in these years it was mostly used in market research. However, in the first years of the 1990s, lifestyle re-entered sociological discussions with the works of contemporary social and cultural theorists such as Bourdieu[4], Featherstone[5], Shields[6], Reimer[7] and Cheney (Bennett, 1386: 100). Lifestyles are the result of all the choices that a person makes regarding his life (Gibneys and Borimer, 1384:103). "Lifestyles are creative programs that are based on the display of consumer power and competence and are considered indicators of the increasing reflection that people display in their daily actions and transactions" (Cheney, 1996:97). Lifestyles are an important form of individual empowerment in the context of late modernity; This empowerment is related to the creative organization of space. Lifestyles provoke many distinctive and particularistic behaviors and cause differences in many actions of individuals and human groups. Andy Bennett mentions the importance of lifestyle in late modernity as follows: "Talking about the recent modern lifestyle means talking about a way of being in which various aspects of local affairs - local virtues and knowledge and customs - are managed in a reflective manner and are creatively combined with sets of adapted cultural resources [8] to build an identity (Bennett, 1386: 103). Lifestyles play an important role in the formation of social-cultural actions and behaviors of individuals and groups, and they show forms of self-presentation and the construction of modern and distinct identities. The present research aims to sociologically explain the relationship between lifestyle and body management among women in Sanandaj city and show the influence of lifestyle on the way of body management.