Fit nation : the gains and pains of America's exercise obsession / Natalia Mehlman Petrzela.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

When sweating was strange -- Slimming the soft American -- From margins to mainstream -- Movement culture, redefined -- Feel the burn -- Hard bodies and soulful selves -- It's not working out.

"Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a leading scholar and proselytizer for physical well-being, elucidates the political and social implications of America's exercise cult(ure). Delving into the paradox of why so many Americans are physically unfit, despite the power of the exercise industry, Petrzela shows fitness to be both a product and a marker of education, social class, wealth, power, and more. Like much in postwar American life, fitness has been privatized, and the resulting dominant ideology of exercise isa product of neoliberal political and culture choices. Petrzela reveals a story that puts Charles Atlas, Jane Fonda, the Chippendales, and so many lesser-known people at the center of American culture, media, and politics"-- Provided by publisher.