Shows
Why Now? A Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 7: You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too ThinIn this episode, I welcome my friend and New School colleague, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, to join me in a conversation about the history of exercise culture in the United States. Her new book, Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023), tracks the history of Americans’ investment in fitness. Taking her readers from late nineteenth-century performances of bodybuilding through today’s glittering gyms, elite studio classes, celebrity instructors, and extreme sports, Petrzela—a scholar, journalist, and podcaster who has a not-so-secret life as an IntenSati leader—both explores an American obsession with fit...2022-12-1747 min