45 Comments

Here's where I get stuck: when we celebrate fitness . . . fit for what? Often the language of fitness feels like another form of ableism, a corollary to "be healthy!" without consideration as to what we're defining as "unhealthy" and what that reveals about our beliefs about disability and bodies. If there are people who are fit there are surely people who are "unfit"? And whew, is that a loaded term.

Expand full comment

Wow, I loved this interview so much. In the last five years, I had two back-to-back emergency c-sections, hip muscle and ligament damage from my pregnancies, and mobility issues for the first time in my life. I did yoga and ran daily prior to that. It was intensely humbling, to suddenly not be able to move your body as your mind believes— knows, even— that you should. For me, there was a profound grief at the loss of what my body was capable of. A huge psychological component because I felt an internalized sense of responsibility (blame) for the state of my “un” fitness, thanks to fitness culture. And it is still constant work to untangle my desire for health— to be able to move without pain, to lift things (my kids, heavy pots and pans), to model play-based movement of all kinds for my daughters— from 30+ years of weight loss-oriented diet culture.

I’m now in a “bodily renaissance” where i’m prioritizing how exercise makes me feel, mentally more even than physically. It’s helped my ADHD and my anxiety so much. One thing that’s only touched on in the interview, re: the $100 yoga pants, is the gear. After two babies, I need a specialty DD+ high-impact sports bra. It’s excruciating to run or do burpees without support, and I’ve spent hundreds of dollars just trying to find one that works. I heard an interview recently with runner Lauren Fleshman about fighting for equity in sports, and making fitness more accessible, and she mentioned her partnership with Oiselle (women’s running brand). I looked at their D-DD+ sports bras, and the price for a single high-impact bra? $75. And that’s the going rate for technical bras. I guess all I’m saying (as a fan of Oiselle!) is that this seems born out of the same issues discussed above. People critique exclusivity and boutique classes and Lululemon (an easy target due to the fatphobia and racism of the owners), but….fitness still isn’t any more accessible at the end of the day. $80+ sports bras? $2000 bicycles? I went to sign up for the Y to enroll my kids in swim lessons and even a Y family membership is $120 a month. Not including the classes themselves!

There’s something particularly pernicious about a society where “fitness”/health products are a luxury good AND healthcare is a for-profit industry. What is the incentive to keep people moving (or happy, or “healthy”) when you’re making money off them once they’re sick?

Anyway, thanks for this one! Excited to read the other responses.

Expand full comment

About inclusivity and fitness - thinking of my partner who is disabled and can't really use most fitness facilities. He did get several weeks of physical therapy following an illness, and was in as good shape as he's been in a long time. But when the insurance no longer pays, the PT is done. Persons like him would greatly benefit for permanent "Fitness therapies". Just like my insurance through work and now Medicare supplements pay for gym memberships in an effort to keep me healthy, coverage should include fitness programs targeted to specific health conditions.

Expand full comment

We have become disconnected in the modern world from the functional fitness needed to lift a child, avoid a hip breaking fall, or chop down a tree. It’s about selfie driven self aggrandizement. I dreaded traditional PE classes. I was made to feel stupid because I couldn’t run, throw, or play team games well. I was bullied on the playground. Dodgeball anyone? I still feel the bruises on my back and legs. I grew up hating “exercise.” I was in my 30s before I discovered weight training, then indoor cycling, and finally yoga. Yoga was so encouraging and accepting. It’s a ‘practice’ after all. One yogi said to us ‘you are only as young as your spine is flexible.’ She looked like a frumpy 60s flower child but she was the strongest and most flexible person I’ve ever known. This mantra keeps my whole self healthy while resisting the pressure of the skewed body ‘ideal.’ But I admit resisting is still difficult.

Expand full comment

This was so interesting! It made me think about how little movement I did during grad school, largely because grad school (for me) was perfectly designed to make me feel guilty for doing anything that felt like "fun" or "leisure". I was also parenting young children at the time so my default settings were "reading and parenting" or "feeling guilty for not reading and parenting". In hindsight, I needed the stress relief of exercise more during that time than any other time of my life but nobody in my grad program ever suggested that we actually do things to take care of our physical or mental health. I would have been a better student and writer if I had been moving more, I am certain of that.

Expand full comment

I'm not sure if I remember seeing the word health in the interview. Not a criticism, just a thought.

I am watching people outside my window running and cycling. I hope they are truly enjoying themselves, being in their bodies and in their environment. I say that because I think health, not fitness, is a very different sight line that truly gets lost. What is the place of physical "fitness" in a person's overall health? How are we defining health? How do we connect movement in the physical arena to the spiritual and/or emotional/mental? I was once told, probably by a psychic or spiritual reader, that it is important for people to exchange air from the lungs daily. He didn't say exercise or movement though it was implied. I liked this way of connecting to physical activity as it linked my whole system to the process of being alive.

I imagine my ancestors moved because it was part of their lives, not something they went somewhere to do.

Expand full comment

I actually had a really different experience in grad school: most people I knew were really into fitness, and most of my peers viewed working out as one of the few acceptable reasons to take a break from your academic work. A lot of my social life involved meeting up with friends to go for a run or do a step aerobics class. (This was the late '90s. Step aerobics was a thing.) I think part of it was that we were all broke, and we had free access to the university gym. I think that fitness culture also played into ideas about self-discipline that resonated with the academic culture we were steeped in.

The thing I felt really guilty about in grad school was reading for pleasure. If I was going to hide anything, it would have been that I checked middlebrow books out from the public library, not that I went to the gym.

Expand full comment

Fitness is definitely conspicuous consumption, I had never put that together. I think for me, there's also a defiance in setting aside the time for me. I'm in an industry (law) that praises work and overwork, and "fitness," for me is a way to prove--visually, through my FitBit or conversationally, by mentioning a long bike ride--that despite being a childless woman I am not completely owned by this job. I do things. I do things other than this job. And it's important for that to be true but also for that to be legible to people around me. Your article has made me think, though, why choose fitness for that message? Why not some other hobby? That I will have to think about.

Expand full comment

When I was in academic settings starting in the 70s, I never felt there was any stigma about exercise. I wonder whether this is a regional issue.

In fact, being at a university made it easiest to be active, with gym and court privileges automatic.

The time I found it difficult to give any attention to such activities was once I started having children (I have three) and was working as well. Then there was neither time nor money.

Boutique fitness would never have been financially accessible to me. It does bother me when a yoga studio makes a big deal of standing for inclusiveness at the same time that taking a class costs a fortune.

For those who are happy working out alone and have the time and space at home but not the money for memberships or exercise equipment, videos can be a real blessing.

Expand full comment

What a wonderful, meaning insightful, informative, and deeply touching, piece.

I got out of high school PE by being an AV boy in the last period, the time most of the coaches wanted to concentrate on the varsity & JV athletes. (AV boys, for the young among us, operated film and slide projectors for classroom teachers.)

Several other points stick out. PE is something you do (did?) at school. It was only rarely concerned with lifetime fitness. Second, the focus on this concept has indeed been a big change in human (modern western) life. Last, I think most people can make a reasonable accommodation with this part of life. In other words, you can go to the Y rather than SoulCycle or take up running without buying zillion dollar sneakers.

Expand full comment

I think not for the first time, this (my favorite Substack newsletter) and Maintenance Phase (my favorite podcast) are converging on topics! MP featured the Angela Lansbury videos a while back and it was a revelation. This entire topic is really hitting home for me as someone who never liked moving until finding trail running and now is an aggressive outdoor person who cannot run normally but loves charging up and down hills. It’s weird what works and doesn’t work for people, I’ll be the first to admit!

Expand full comment

Such a thought-provoking piece. Thank you. 'What would it look like if people of all backgrounds and identities had access to safe and fun recreational exercise experiences and the time, space, and health to enjoy them?' I dabbled with all kinds of different exercise but didn't find the one I've stuck at (taekwondo, for 12 years now) until exercise was able to fit into my life and around my responsibilities. I train with my daughter (we've both done it since she was 5) and I am stronger, healthier, more *awake* (I used to fall asleep on the couch after dinner) and happier for it. I wonder how much better off our society would be if we could all have that? I don't think that's evangelising fitness—accessibility is a public good.

Expand full comment

Just here to reminisce about wearing leg warmers over MY JEANS in high school as a fashion trend circa 1982. I borrowed them from my mother, who loved her step aerobics, and I even attended a class or two at her extremely fancy heath club (East Bank in Chicago, IYKYK) "grapevine!", doing the Jane Fonda workout on VCR in college with friends in our apartments, "feeling the burn", etc.

I was never an exercise person, despite years of tennis and ice skating lessons in my youth, and despised gymnastics (Lincoln Turners, again IYKYK). I no longer belong to a health club, but have a decades old elliptical in the basement and the occasional Middle Aged Woman walk date with a friend outdoors when the weather is good, inside our town's dome or indoor walking track when its not. I do think it would be good to find a shared exercise activity with my husband as a 'couples thing'. Some friends bike ride with their spouse, I assume we will pick up pickleball within the next few years, lol.

Expand full comment

SO MANY THOUGHTS...about my own academic and (what do we call it if not “fitness”) physical pursuits and process. As a recovering addict and philosophy major and former gym rat, I know that working ALL of my muscles makes me my happiest version of myself, which allows me to love and serve others with gratitude and even some grace.

Expand full comment

Wow, what an article. I will be thinking about this for a long time.

Seniors also are targeted in all this. Senior retirement communities that highlight golf, tennis, swimming, golf cart riding white seniors with big smiles living in very racially segregated gated communities. Many of us can feel that we are not living “our best years” if we cannot retire to a warm, sunny place with all these facilities.

Thank God for the Y’s where we gather in tee shirts and sweats to strengthen and stretch our aging bodies without caring much how we look, we just want to feel better.

Expand full comment

My sisters and I and our friends used to workout in our family room to this Sports Illustrated workout series featuring Cheryl Tiegs, Elle McPhereson, and Rachel Hunter. We were like 10! I have no clue where it came from since my mom wasn’t too into fitness. I also loved Denise Austin in graduate school and would workout to her VHS tapes in my tiny apartment.

https://youtu.be/9f_ZQquCKrE

Expand full comment