October 17, 2022
“The pursuit of fitness... has simultaneously become a universal ideal and a stark dividing line” that reinforces class and racial divisions, according to this comprehensive account from New School history professor Petrzela (Classroom Wars). Documenting how the idea of “fit bodies” evolved from the 19th century, when a “fat” shape indicated affluence and well-being; to the early 20th century, when “feats of strength” were relegated to the circus; to the present, when exercise is “universally” considered essential to health and beauty, Petrzela notes the influence of exercise pioneers (Jack LaLanne; Jim Fixx), celebrity culture, and legal reforms (in particular the passage of Title IX). Key developments include President Eisenhower’s call for “soft Americans” to become stronger and more disciplined as a matter of national security, John F. Kennedy’s more relaxed attitude toward exercise as recreation, and the rise of gyms, televised exercise programs, and jogging in the 1970s and ’80s. Some of Petrzela’s most eye-opening insights involve the evolution of women’s fitness from Jazzercise and other programs that promoted feminine beauty to the rise of women athletes as role models. 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.
December 1, 2022
Exercise can be fun, a means to better health, a path to self-discipline, empowering, virtuous, fashionable (with or without sweating), and even narcissistic. Petrzela tracks how regular exercise made its way into daily American life. Enlivened with some striking archival photographs, her discussion delineates the aspirations, fads, attitudes, culture, and absurdities that have made fitness a multibillion-dollar industry. She questions how much healthier Americans are in light of all this effort and expenditure. Notable characters in America's pursuit of fitness are spotlighted, including exercise crusaders, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and even U.S. presidents. Fitness gadgets and contraptions, school PE class, the selling of ""slenderizing,"" the rise of yoga, jogging, weightlifting, aerobics, Jazzercise, gyms, and athleisure clothing all receive attention. Petrzela explains how three twenty-first-century crises--9/11 terrorism, the 2008 financial collapse, and the coronavirus pandemic--have impacted America's fitness. The growth of exercise in the U.S. has been complicated, costly, and at times crazy. Petrzela concludes, ""In so many ways, the fit nation is not 'working out'."" A pensive survey of the evolution of exercise in America and a pessimistic view of our nation's current fitness.
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Starred review from October 1, 2022
Petrzela (history, the New School; Classroom Wars) is a certified fitness instructor whose book takes a compassionate yet critical look at the history of America's obsession with fitness. She analyzes the widely accepted, underlying ideas of a fit nation--those connections between mind and body, and people's right to exercise. She focuses on her analysis in order to draw attention to the flaws in a system that celebrates fitness "gains" (a word that may be as much about weight lost as it is about strength gained) when fitness is situated as a responsibility but one that not everyone has access to. American culture privileges fitness yet obtaining it requires a degree of privilege. VERDICT A highly recommended book that is designed to strengthen readers' activist muscles so that they can create more inclusive, accessible spaces for exercise, along with fewer metrics that immediately exclude certain bodies from social definitions of health.--Emily Bowles
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