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
the activity of a strange subculture, but today, it's almost
impossible to avoid exhortations to exercise: Walk 5K to cure
cancer! Awaken 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 20
percent of Americans work out consistently, over half of gym
members don't even use the facilities they pay for, and fewer than
30 percent of high school students get an hour of exercise a day.
So how did fitness become both inescapable and inaccessible?
Spanning more than 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 have 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. Examining venues from the stage of the
World's Fair and Muscle Beach to fat farms, feminist health
clinics, radical and evangelical college campuses, yoga retreats,
gleaming health clubs, school gymnasiums, and many more, Fit Nation
is a revealing history that shows fitness to be not just a matter
of physical health but of what it means to be an American.
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