Why Women Now Power Fitness Consumption in Taiwan
The rise of female fitness consumption is perhaps the most significant change in the fitness industry over the last decade. According to government data, In 2013 the percentage of women who regularly engaged in sports and fitness was 27%, which rose significantly to 30.4% in 2019. In comparison, male fitness involvement has barely changed, in 2013 35.6% of men exercised regularly, and this number only increased to 36.7% by 2019.
While male fitness consumers still outnumber women in Taiwan, women spend considerably more on fitness than men. In 2019, the total national fitness activity expenditure by women was NT$ 7.51 billion (US$269 million), which was 1.8x higher than the male spend of NT$ 4.24 billion (US$152 million). 16.4% of female consumers will purchase exercise classes of some sort in a year, compared to only 9% of men and 4.3% of women will pay for a personal trainer, which only 3.1% of men are willing to do.
Why are women now involved more in fitness and spending more on fitness? Professor of the Sociology of Sports, Ying Chiang, of Chihlee University of Technology thinks that the main reason is a change in the way that Taiwanese view femininity and gender roles. Before the 1990s, Women’s status in society was always connected to the home and being a mother. Docility was considered to be an expression of femininity. Women at the time had minimal consumption power and little leisure time to engage in fitness activities.
With the rise of female consumerism and leisure time in the 90s, Taiwanese women embraced Western fitness culture and beauty ideals.
With the substantiative growth of the Taiwanese economy at the end of the 80s and ’90s, the conditions were put in place for Taiwanese to embrace both consumerism and leisure lifestyles. At the beginning of the 1990s, Taiwan became influenced by an already established Western fitness culture, that had blossomed through celebrity workout videos from stars like Olivia Newton-John and Cindy Crawford. This also introduced a new set of female body ideals, which told women that it was feminine and attractive to be lean, muscular, and healthy.
These changes were amplified as women’s status and power in society grew in the following decades and engendered the current paradigm in which being fit is now an expression of feminity. Women are now getting married later, having fewer children, and having more leisure time for lifestyles such as fitness. In this way, fitness consumption has become a representation of modern female empowerment, showing that a woman is both strong and independent.
“At one level the rise of Taiwanese female fitness consumption represents female empowerment, but at another level, it’s just a repackaging of the traditional Taiwan beauty myth”-Professor Ying Chiang, Chilhee University
Professor Chiang also highlights that there a limits to this model of empowerment and in many ways, it is very much a new manifestation of entrenched beauty myths. The main reason that women go to gyms and get fit, is still to lose weight to satisfy the ‘male gaze’. Women are still striving to achieve an ideal body that meets a singular societal definition. The only difference is that this body ideal is fitter and more muscular than before.
Influencers like MayFit can be considered the gatekeepers to fitness culture for many women in Taiwan.
As a reflection of this, female fitness KOL are far more influential and generate more sales than their male counterparts(and are consequently more expensive for brands). Women are more pressured to match the beauty ideals represented by these influencers. As many women are new to fitness, they are often the source for women to learn about fitness lifestyle and they have a lot of power over female fitness consumers. When women are at the information-gathering stage when they decide to get fit, influencers are often the main source of knowledge and can be seen as gatekeepers to fitness culture.
In 2007, Nike produced a short film named 她 JUST DO IT which emphasized the importance of female empowerment
The brand Nike should also be attributed in many ways for the rise of female fitness consumption, according to Ray Liu of LinkSports. Nike has been extremely active in promoting fitness activities for women and packing fitness lifestyles in a way that is attractive to professional women. Most of Nike’s offline events and promotions are female-focused, as recognition for the potential of that market. From the mid-90s, Nike devised women-led marketing campaigns and slogans that were designed to specifically connect with female consumers in Taiwan and present fitness as something that was both attractive and accessible. The most prominent of these was when in 2007, Nike worked with three film directors to produce a film called “She JUST DO IT”（她 JUST DO IT) in which three different women told emphasized in stories the need to break through limitations and develop one’s talents. The film was entered into the country’s Golden Horse Film Festival and was praised for stressing the importance of self-realization and internal beauty, over physical appearance.
Ryan, Matthew. “The 10-Year Formosa Fitness Frenzy: Why Taiwan Went Wild for Exercise.” Taiwan Consumer Insights, 1 3 2022, https://taiwanconsumers.substack.com/p/understanding-taiwans-fitness-boom. Accessed 26 8 2022.