Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Author’s Note ix
4. Introduction: What Is the Fit Nation? 1
5. Part One. When Sweating Was Strange 13
6. 1 Performing Civilization 13
7. 2 No More Fat Cats or Ladies of Leisure 31
8. 3 Sanitizing—and Selling—Fitness 43
9. 4 The California Beach Body Is Born 59
10. Part Two. Slimming the Soft American
11. 5 White Plains, the White House, and the Paradox of Prosperity 67
12. 6 Fitness Makes Us Strong, Not Soft 79
13. Part Three, From Margins to Mainstream
14. 7 The Future Belongs to the Fit 95
15. 8 Training for Life—Body and Mind 105
16. 9 The “Tanny Touch” 115
17. 10 Slimming on the Small Screen 125
18. Part Four. Movement Culture, Redefined
19. 11 Yoga and the Counterculture 137
20. 12 Kenneth Cooper and Aerobics Universalism 147
21. 13 Run for Your Lives! 153
22. 14 Title IX and Its Limits 159
23. 15 Swap the Fat for Your True Self 189
24. Part Five, Feel the Burn
25. 16 Daytime Disco 203
26. 17 The New Gospel of Fitness 221
27. 18 Turning Up the Intensity 239
28. 19 Not Quite Sports 253
29. Part Six. Hard Bodies and Soulful Selves
30. 20 Beyond Aerobics with Chanting 263
31. 21 Strong Is the New Skinny? 279
32. 22 It’s Not Fitness, It’s Life 291
33. Part Seven It’s Not Working Out
34. 23 Exercising in an Age of Uncertainty 307
35. 24 Eat, Pray, Buy 315
36. 25 The Limits of “Let’s Move” 323
37. 26 The Pandemic and the Peloton 329
38. 27 Broken Equipment 335
39. Acknowledgments 345
40. Notes 349
41. Bibliography 389
42. Index 435