“Protecting the Gift”: Risk, Parental (Ir)responsibility, and CrossFit Kids Magazine

This paper draws upon data collected from a critical discourse analysis of CrossFit Kids Magazine (CFKM) and examines how children in/and physical activity are represented in this contemporary sporting (con)text. I propose that the magazine promotes physical activity among children and youth but in so doing relies upon and actively (re)produces certain ideas and beliefs about children and about parenting. In CFKM, children are constructed as uniquely vulnerable, "at-risk," subjects but also as "in-progress" future citizens and CrossFit Kids programs are positioned as a purchasable tool that parents can use to mitigate myriad risks that threaten their children. In this way, CFKM promotes active children and proactive parents and functions as a prescriptive and proscriptive text regarding exercise, parenting, and individual risk management.