Yoga consumption in China is heavily influenced by Western trends like healthism and body image cultism; at the same time, however, it maintains a cautious distance from spirituality and theosophy.

This study investigates these trends by analyzing discourse and practice within mainstream news media articles related to yoga. Furthermore, this analysis explores themes such as symbolic displacement and cultural appropriation.

Healthism

Yoga practitioners frequently claim that its practice is an integrative one that can promote overall health and well-being, such as weight loss and increased muscle strength as well as emotional calmness and mental peace.

However, an examination of research material shows that yoga’s popularity can be traced to healthism rather than anything to do with spiritualism or any religious doctrine or belief; rather its popularity stems from cultural trends like social Darwinism, Lamarckism and eugenics that influence Western thinking and philosophy.

As such, yoga has become increasingly associated with helping individuals achieve the body of their dreams and an antidote to the stresses of modern life. This view of yoga is reinforced by its increasing popularity – from mats and clothes to classes and holidays – all promoted as yoga-related products and services by entrepreneurs who have successfully created an intersection between its benefits and key themes in consumer culture.

The Cult of Body Performance and Image

Yoga has quickly become a globalized trend among Chinese consumers in recent years. The spirituality found within Western yoga appeals to people who feel disconnected from the religion they were raised with but seek meaning and moral teachings outside it.

Yoga offers an efficient method of self-improvement that promises to help people improve beauty, strength, flexibility, and reduce stress. Yoga’s growing popularity can be seen as part of transnational consumer culture which encourages individuals to incorporate various worldviews and practices according to their lifestyle preferences.

However, yoga’s increasing mainstream popularity should be treated with caution due to a potential transformation and loss of its original philosophy and spirituality. Yoga has become more mainstream by being exposed to Western cultural trends like healthism which could compromise its spiritual and philosophical elements. Furthermore, the risk of appropriation increases with its wider dissemination.

Cultural Appropriation

Modern yoga is promoted for consumer consumption through global economic, cultural, and technological flows. These connections link yoga practitioners with studios from distant cultures; further commodifying practices which once held deep spiritual meaning (Merry 1998; Fish 2006).

Hindu and Buddhist motifs being appropriated into commercial yoga contexts has raised issues surrounding cultural respect and understanding, while yoga brands that promote health, wellbeing, and spiritual transformation has resulted in concerns regarding its commercialization and subsequent detachment from its religious roots.

Practitioners communicate their individual yogic meaning through the choices they make when it comes to consumption. For instance, many yoga practitioners opt for free services over paid ones in order to avoid commercialization of yoga services and maintain an alternative identity rooted in yoga. Yet this form of consumption remains part of consumer culture as individuals seek fulfillment of certain needs or desires through leisure activities thereby shaping an identity tied closely to yoga practice.

Globalization

Yoga has quickly become an international craze since globalization’s widespread growth; its surge has been propelled by consumer desire to find ways to relax, de-stress, and stay healthy while relaxing their bodies and minds.

Yoga has grown into a multibillion dollar industry and its focus has shifted away from spirituality and self-realization towards looks, health and fitness. This shift can be partially attributed to Western culture embracing and popularizing it; where consumers have different priorities and desires than those found elsewhere.

Notably, many yoga practitioners have expressed concern over the commercialization of yoga and its subsequent loss of its original ethos. Yet it must also be acknowledged that movements that seek to inject moral values into markets often end up creating syncretic solutions or adopting concepts which conflict with their founding ethos (Fish 2006; Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012; Strauss and Mandelbaum 2013) as witnessed in modern society with respect to yoga commodification.