Fit nation : the gains and pains of America's exercise obsession / Natalia Mehlman Petrzela.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petrzela, Natalia Mehlman, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Exercise--Social aspects--United States.

Exercise.

Physical fitness--Social aspects--United States.

Physical fitness.

Physical fitness centers--United States.

Physical fitness centers.

Well-being--United States.

Well-being.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (432 p.) : 27 halftones

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2022.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

How is it that Americans are more obsessed with exercise than ever, and yet also unhealthier? Fit Nation explains how we got here and imagines how we might create a more inclusive, stronger future. If a shared American creed still exists, it’s a belief that exercise is integral to a life well lived. A century ago, working out was a strange subculture, but today, it’s almost impossible to avoid exhortations to exercise: Walk 5K to cure cancer! Ignite your inner sex kitten at pole-dancing class! Sweat like (or even with) a celebrity in spin class! Exercise is everywhere. Yet the United States is hardly a “fit nation.” Only twenty percent of Americans work out consistently, over half of gym members don’t even use the facilities, and fewer than three out of ten high school students get an hour of exercise a day. So how did fitness become both inescapable and inaccessible? Spanning over a century of American history, Fit Nation answers these questions and more through original interviews, archival research, and a rich cultural narrative. As a leading political and intellectual historian and a certified fitness instructor, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela is uniquely qualified to confront the complex and far-reaching implications of how our contemporary exercise culture took shape. She explores the work of working out not just as consumers experienced it, but as it was created by performers, physical educators, trainers, instructors, and many others. For Petrzela, fitness is a social justice issue. She argues that the fight for a more equitable exercise culture will be won only by revolutionizing fitness culture at its core, making it truly inclusive for all bodies in a way it has never been. Ranging from the stage of the World’s Fair to Muscle Beach to fat farms to feminist health clinics to radical and evangelical college campuses to yoga retreats to gleaming health clubs to countless school gymnasiums, and much more, Fit Nation is a revealing history of fitness that shows it to be not just a matter of physical health but of what it means to be an American.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Author’s Note

Introduction: What Is the Fit Nation?

Part One. When Sweating Was Strange

1 Performing Civilization

2 No More Fat Cats or Ladies of Leisure

3 Sanitizing—and Selling—Fitness

4 The California Beach Body Is Born

Part Two. Slimming the Soft American

5 White Plains, the White House, and the Paradox of Prosperity

6 Fitness Makes Us Strong, Not Soft

Part Three, From Margins to Mainstream

7 The Future Belongs to the Fit

8 Training for Life—Body and Mind

9 The “Tanny Touch”

10 Slimming on the Small Screen

Part Four. Movement Culture, Redefined

11 Yoga and the Counterculture

12 Kenneth Cooper and Aerobics Universalism

13 Run for Your Lives!

14 Title IX and Its Limits

15 Swap the Fat for Your True Self

Part Five, Feel the Burn

16 Daytime Disco

17 The New Gospel of Fitness

18 Turning Up the Intensity

19 Not Quite Sports

Part Six. Hard Bodies and Soulful Selves

20 Beyond Aerobics with Chanting

21 Strong Is the New Skinny?

22 It’s Not Fitness, It’s Life

Part Seven It’s Not Working Out

23 Exercising in an Age of Uncertainty

24 Eat, Pray, Buy

25 The Limits of “Let’s Move”

26 The Pandemic and the Peloton

27 Broken Equipment

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-226-65124-X