From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation
Though only one-fifth of Americans do the recommended amount of daily physical exercise and most measures point to an extraordinary lack of fitness in the United States, the pursuit of regular exercise is widely celebrated not only as physically salutary, but as a sign of discipline, affluence, and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Transatlantica |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/16318 |
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| _version_ | 1832580865549402112 |
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| author | Natalia Mehlman Petrzela |
| author_facet | Natalia Mehlman Petrzela |
| author_sort | Natalia Mehlman Petrzela |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Though only one-fifth of Americans do the recommended amount of daily physical exercise and most measures point to an extraordinary lack of fitness in the United States, the pursuit of regular exercise is widely celebrated not only as physically salutary, but as a sign of discipline, affluence, and virtue. Using popular press, institutional records, advice literature, advertisement, and memoir, this article explains how this was not always so. The pursuit of exercise evolved from a strange, suspicious subculture characterized by individual performance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a more participatory realm represented by Muscle Beach in the 1940s and 1950s, establishing the foundation of today’s “fit nation,” a culture in which the pursuit of exercise is valorized as an ideal, but not equitably accessible. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f28eed48537041f5a97daf8786f90bf9 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1765-2766 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-03-01 |
| publisher | Association Française d'Etudes Américaines |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Transatlantica |
| spelling | doaj-art-f28eed48537041f5a97daf8786f90bf92025-01-30T10:43:04ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662021-03-01210.4000/transatlantica.16318From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit NationNatalia Mehlman PetrzelaThough only one-fifth of Americans do the recommended amount of daily physical exercise and most measures point to an extraordinary lack of fitness in the United States, the pursuit of regular exercise is widely celebrated not only as physically salutary, but as a sign of discipline, affluence, and virtue. Using popular press, institutional records, advice literature, advertisement, and memoir, this article explains how this was not always so. The pursuit of exercise evolved from a strange, suspicious subculture characterized by individual performance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a more participatory realm represented by Muscle Beach in the 1940s and 1950s, establishing the foundation of today’s “fit nation,” a culture in which the pursuit of exercise is valorized as an ideal, but not equitably accessible.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/16318genderfeminismyouth culturecapitalismfitnessbusiness history |
| spellingShingle | Natalia Mehlman Petrzela From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation Transatlantica gender feminism youth culture capitalism fitness business history |
| title | From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation |
| title_full | From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation |
| title_fullStr | From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation |
| title_full_unstemmed | From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation |
| title_short | From Performance to Participation: The Origins of the Fit Nation |
| title_sort | from performance to participation the origins of the fit nation |
| topic | gender feminism youth culture capitalism fitness business history |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/16318 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nataliamehlmanpetrzela fromperformancetoparticipationtheoriginsofthefitnation |