How do shifting ideas about physical fitness, health, and the body reflect larger ideological structures like nation, race, gender, and capitalism? Natalia Mehlman Petrzela is a historian of American culture and politics and associate professor of history at the New School. In this conversation, we discuss her latest book Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession, which tracks the evolution of fitness culture from the strongman exhibitions at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair to the Peloton/home gym movement of the COVID-19 era.  

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