Physical Fitness Industry

The pursuit and maintenance of physical fitness, health and wellness has become, over the past three decades, a national preoccupation for North Americans. Sometimes referred to as "the wellness craze," this phenomenon has resulted in the widespread creation of a multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to satisfying the American populace's desire for exercise (Christopher, 1987). By the end of the 20th century, the home fitness industry, as well as fitness centers, had grown in popularity.

The health and wellness movement has become so much a part of modern culture that its effects pervade the popular media. Magazines, such as Time, produce sections devoted to fitness, television stations air exercise shows as part of their scheduled programming, and health and wellness professionals, made famous by the popularity of their teaching techniques and formats, have joined the ranks of celebrity (Stone, 1987).

In addition various sports and forms of exercise have enjoyed a growth in popularity due to the fitness boom of the last thirty years. For instance tennis and racquetball sprung to widespread prominence in the 1970s with the number of racquetball players in the United States growing from 50,000 in 1970 to eight million in 1979 (Stone, 1987, p. 7). Aerobic Dance, invented in the early 1970s by Jackie Sorenson, and later having its name shortened to simply aerobics, became so popular in the 1980s that, by the end of the decade, there were estimated to be over 22 million reg

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e (Keeton, 1992; O'Reilly, 1989). One study, conducted by Lars-Goran Ekelund, an associate research professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, monitored the fitness levels and exercise regimens of 3,106 men, between the ages of thirty and sixty-nine, for eight years. The findings concluded that those men who were the most fit were 3.2 times less likely to die from heart disease than were those who were more out of shape (Keeton, 1992, p. 151). The improvement of general health and the prevention, or lessening in virulence, of serious disease provides, therefore, one compelling motivation for people to forego their sedentary lifestyles and begin to embrace exercise by joining the health and wellness movement. However there are other reasons, which rival this one, that provide just as strong a motivation for people to participate in the fitness boom. One extremely powerful motivator is the search for cosmetic benefits such as a sculpted physique or a fashionably thin body. Popular culture has, for years, decreed that the most acceptable body type for women is that of a svelte fashion model, while for men the standard demands strength and a more muscular physiognomy. These images of what the perfec

Category: Psychology - P