Overview

"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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9780226833361

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Reviews

"""Petrzela takes us on a whirlwind journey. . . She traces how the United States simultaneously became obsessed with working out and failed to provide necessary resources for it."" * New York Times * “Petrzela demonstrates that chic, pricey gyms have an outsize influence on our collective mentality around fitness, and she does so effectively. Her analysis of elitist workout culture has a sharp edge. . . . [Fit Nation] provocatively and firmly argues that fitness is not an unmitigated good in American culture.” * Washington Post * ""Petrzela’s account moves at a quick-lap pace: She scans the market from top to bottom, from the Equinox gym to the Zumba class in a local church hall."" * Wall Street Journal * ""This author does an excellent job exploring cultural trends and patterns related to exercise over time, offering insight on how exercise may represent not a health modality for all but instead an exclusive subculture. Petrzela raises interesting questions regarding the negative impacts of exercise behavior on US culture and prompts readers to critically assess what solutions or attitudes might be helpful for the future."" * Choice * “Petrzela has brought us an intellectually rich and delightfully informative history of how people in the United States have understood, obsessed over, and changed their bodies. In a thorough look at the trends, characters, and ideologies that have informed the body politic and the politics of bodies, Petrzela helps us recognize the weight of constant messaging from industries trying to convince the public to seek perfection endlessly. An important and enjoyable read.” * Marcia Chatelain, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning ""Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America"" * “America’s current obsession with fitness, exercise, and wellness has a deep and fascinating history, one that Petrzela has been at the forefront of illuminating as a historian, writer, educator, activist—and instructor. In Fit Nation, Petrzela brings to bear her tremendous narrative gifts through a rich cast of characters and entrepreneurs while deepening our understanding of the complex social, cultural, political, and economic forces that have helped to shape our bodies figuratively and literally. Whatever your relationship to exercise, this entertaining and transformative book is a must-read.” * Marisa Meltzer, author of ""This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World (and Me)"" * “Fit Nation is a comprehensive, analytically rich history that offers an expert guided tour of fitness entrepreneurs and practices. Petrzela uses the lens of fitness to offer a fascinating history of transformations in conceptions of masculinity and femininity, consumption practices, and entrepreneurialism. The result is a political history of ideas—about the body, community, and the proper relations between the state and the individual—that is not only fascinating but strikingly relevant.” * Lawrence B. Glickman, Cornell University * “This is the book I’ve been waiting for my whole career! As someone who has straddled the fitness industry and public health academia for decades, I truly cannot underscore strongly enough the importance of what Petrzela has so perfectly and poignantly presented here. Both long overdue and impeccably timed, Fit Nation is a necessary key to the future of fitness.” * Shauna Harrison, yogi, trainer, and academic * ""Throughout, Petrzela critiques the fitness industry's lack of attention to poor, working-class, and nonwhite communities, and marshals a wealth of information into a coherent narrative. This is a valuable survey of what exercise means in America."" * Publishers Weekly * ""A pensive survey of the evolution of exercise in America and a pessimistic view of our nation's current fitness."" * Booklist * ""Invariably eloquent. . . Ms. Petrzela's method is to present the history of the millennium as a history of fitness — annotated and exhaustively footnoted. There's something curiously absurd, tendentious, and remarkably true about that, particularly if one looks at fitness, wealth, and self-realization — all forms of aspiration — as symptoms of the drive and insatiability of an almost romantic culture."" * East Hampton Star * ""[Fit Nation] charts the evolution of our collective attitudes toward exercise. . . . Petrzela shows how working out went from a bizarre pastime to being an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. She also reveals the double-edged sword beneath it all--how exercise can be both empowering and elitist at the same time."" * MPR News * ""Offering a timely look at American exercise culture, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela traces how fitness shed its negative associations — weird, narcissistic, and effete — to become a widely embraced moral good by the end of the 20th century. . . . Fit Nation is ambitious in scope, and Petrzela marshals a kitchen sink of evidence to plot this history."" * Resources for Gender and Women's Studies *"

"""A pensive survey of the evolution of exercise in America and a pessimistic view of our nation's current fitness.""-- ""Booklist"" ""Invariably eloquent. . . Ms. Petrzela's method is to present the history of the millennium as a history of fitness -- annotated and exhaustively footnoted. There's something curiously absurd, tendentious, and remarkably true about that, particularly if one looks at fitness, wealth, and self-realization -- all forms of aspiration -- as symptoms of the drive and insatiability of an almost romantic culture.""-- ""East Hampton Star"" ""Petrzela has brought us an intellectually rich and delightfully informative history of how people in the United States have understood, obsessed over, and changed their bodies. In a thorough look at the trends, characters, and ideologies that have informed the body politic and the politics of bodies, Petrzela helps us recognize the weight of constant messaging from industries trying to convince the public to seek perfection endlessly. An important and enjoyable read.""-- ""Marcia Chatelain, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning ""Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America"""" ""Petrzela takes us on a whirlwind journey. . . She traces how the United States simultaneously became obsessed with working out and failed to provide necessary resources for it.""-- ""New York Times"" ""Petrzela's account moves at a quick-lap pace: She scans the market from top to bottom, from the Equinox gym to the Zumba class in a local church hall.""-- ""Wall Street Journal"" ""Throughout, Petrzela critiques the fitness industry's lack of attention to poor, working-class, and nonwhite communities, and marshals a wealth of information into a coherent narrative. This is a valuable survey of what exercise means in America.""-- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""Fit Nation is a comprehensive, analytically rich history that offers an expert guided tour of fitness entrepreneurs and practices. Petrzela uses the lens of fitness to offer a fascinating history of transformations in conceptions of masculinity and femininity, consumption practices, and entrepreneurialism. The result is a political history of ideas--about the body, community, and the proper relations between the state and the individual--that is not only fascinating but strikingly relevant.""-- ""Lawrence B. Glickman, Cornell University"" ""America's current obsession with fitness, exercise, and wellness has a deep and fascinating history, one that Petrzela has been at the forefront of illuminating as a historian, writer, educator, activist--and instructor. In Fit Nation, Petrzela brings to bear her tremendous narrative gifts through a rich cast of characters and entrepreneurs while deepening our understanding of the complex social, cultural, political, and economic forces that have helped to shape our bodies figuratively and literally. Whatever your relationship to exercise, this entertaining and transformative book is a must-read.""-- ""Marisa Meltzer, author of ""This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World (and Me)"""" ""Petrzela demonstrates that chic, pricey gyms have an outsize influence on our collective mentality around fitness, and she does so effectively. Her analysis of elitist workout culture has a sharp edge. . . . [Fit Nation] provocatively and firmly argues that fitness is not an unmitigated good in American culture.""-- ""Washington Post"" ""This is the book I've been waiting for my whole career! As someone who has straddled the fitness industry and public health academia for decades, I truly cannot underscore strongly enough the importance of what Petrzela has so perfectly and poignantly presented here. Both long overdue and impeccably timed, Fit Nation is a necessary key to the future of fitness.""-- ""Shauna Harrison, yogi, trainer, and academic"""

"""Petrzela takes us on a whirlwind journey. . . She traces how the United States simultaneously became obsessed with working out and failed to provide necessary resources for it."" * New York Times * “Petrzela demonstrates that chic, pricey gyms have an outsize influence on our collective mentality around fitness, and she does so effectively. Her analysis of elitist workout culture has a sharp edge. . . . [Fit Nation] provocatively and firmly argues that fitness is not an unmitigated good in American culture.” * Washington Post * ""Petrzela’s account moves at a quick-lap pace: She scans the market from top to bottom, from the Equinox gym to the Zumba class in a local church hall."" * Wall Street Journal * ""This author does an excellent job exploring cultural trends and patterns related to exercise over time, offering insight on how exercise may represent not a health modality for all but instead an exclusive subculture. Petrzela raises interesting questions regarding the negative impacts of exercise behavior on US culture and prompts readers to critically assess what solutions or attitudes might be helpful for the future."" * Choice * “Petrzela has brought us an intellectually rich and delightfully informative history of how people in the United States have understood, obsessed over, and changed their bodies. In a thorough look at the trends, characters, and ideologies that have informed the body politic and the politics of bodies, Petrzela helps us recognize the weight of constant messaging from industries trying to convince the public to seek perfection endlessly. An important and enjoyable read.” * Marcia Chatelain, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning ""Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America"" * “America’s current obsession with fitness, exercise, and wellness has a deep and fascinating history, one that Petrzela has been at the forefront of illuminating as a historian, writer, educator, activist—and instructor. In Fit Nation, Petrzela brings to bear her tremendous narrative gifts through a rich cast of characters and entrepreneurs while deepening our understanding of the complex social, cultural, political, and economic forces that have helped to shape our bodies figuratively and literally. Whatever your relationship to exercise, this entertaining and transformative book is a must-read.” * Marisa Meltzer, author of ""This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World (and Me)"" * “Fit Nation is a comprehensive, analytically rich history that offers an expert guided tour of fitness entrepreneurs and practices. Petrzela uses the lens of fitness to offer a fascinating history of transformations in conceptions of masculinity and femininity, consumption practices, and entrepreneurialism. The result is a political history of ideas—about the body, community, and the proper relations between the state and the individual—that is not only fascinating but strikingly relevant.” * Lawrence B. Glickman, Cornell University * “This is the book I’ve been waiting for my whole career! As someone who has straddled the fitness industry and public health academia for decades, I truly cannot underscore strongly enough the importance of what Petrzela has so perfectly and poignantly presented here. Both long overdue and impeccably timed, Fit Nation is a necessary key to the future of fitness.” * Shauna Harrison, yogi, trainer, and academic * ""Throughout, Petrzela critiques the fitness industry's lack of attention to poor, working-class, and nonwhite communities, and marshals a wealth of information into a coherent narrative. This is a valuable survey of what exercise means in America."" * Publishers Weekly * ""A pensive survey of the evolution of exercise in America and a pessimistic view of our nation's current fitness."" * Booklist * ""Invariably eloquent. . . Ms. Petrzela's method is to present the history of the millennium as a history of fitness — annotated and exhaustively footnoted. There's something curiously absurd, tendentious, and remarkably true about that, particularly if one looks at fitness, wealth, and self-realization — all forms of aspiration — as symptoms of the drive and insatiability of an almost romantic culture."" * East Hampton Star *"

Author Information

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela is a historian of contemporary American politics and culture and associate professor of history at the New School. A certified fitness instructor, she has worked out at home and in gyms for nearly three decades. She is the author of Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture, and her work has appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and CNN. She is coproducer and host of the acclaimed podcast Welcome to Your Fantasy and cohost of the Past Present podcast. She lives in New York City.

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