Publishers Weekly
10/17/2022
“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. (Dec.)
Resources for Gender and Women's Studies
"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."
author of Pulitzer Prize-winning "Franchise: T Marcia Chatelain
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.
Journal of Sport History
"Fit Nation touches on the origins and evolution of a wide variety of fitness modalities and the fitness industry itself. Moreover, Petrzela does an admirable job discussing how technologies from television to videocassettes and social media have altered the practice and perceptions of fitness."
New York Times
"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."
MPR News
"[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."
Booklist
"A pensive survey of the evolution of exercise in America and a pessimistic view of our nation's current fitness."
Cornell University Lawrence B. Glickman
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.
Choice
"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."
Shauna Harrison
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.
East Hampton Star
"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."
author of "This Is Big: How the Founder of Wei Marisa Meltzer
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.
Wall Street Journal
"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."
Washington Post
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.
author of Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Franchise: Marcia Chatelain
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.
author of 'This Is Big: How the Founder of We Marisa Meltzer
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.
Library Journal
★ 10/01/2022
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
