Let's Get Physical - How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World

Informationen zum Autor Danielle Friedman is an award-winning journalist whose feature writing has appeared in The New York Times , The Cut , Vogue , Harper's Bazaar , Glamour , Health , and other publications. She has worked as a senior editor at NBC News Digital and The Daily Beast, and she began her career as a nonfiction book editor at the Penguin imprints Hudson Street Press and Plume. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.       Klappentext A captivating blend of reportage and personal narrative that explores the untold history of women’s exercise culture--from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda--and how women have parlayed physical strength into other forms of power. For much of the twentieth century, sweating was considered “unladylike” and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to “fall out.” It was only in the Sixties that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse. In Let's Get Physical , journalist Danielle Friedman reveals the fascinating untold history of contemporary fitness culture, chronicling in vivid, cinematic prose how exercise evolved from a beauty tool pitched almost exclusively as a way to “reduce” into one millions have harnessed as a path to mental, emotional, and physical well-being.    Let’s Get Physical takes us into the workout studios and onto the mats to reclaim these forgotten origin stories—and shine a spotlight on the trailblazers who made it possible for women to move. Each chapter uncovers the birth of an fitness movement that laid the foundation for working out today: the invention of the barre method in the Swinging Sixties, jogging’s path to liberation in the Seventies, the explosion of aerobics and weight-training in the Eighties, the rise of yoga in the Nineties, and the ongoing push for a more socially inclusive fitness culture—one that celebrates every body. Ultimately, it tells the story of how women discovered the joy of physical competence and strength—and how, by moving together to transform fitness from a privilege into a right, we can create a more powerful sisterhood. Leseprobe Chapter 1 Reduce Pat: I've been around physical ed for years. Mike: Physical Ed? Who's he? -Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Pat and Mike , 1952 America, manpower conscious, is almost oblivious of the potential of its neglected womanpower. - Eugene Register-Guard , 1962 New Yorkers who spotted Bonnie Prudden striding through midtown Manhattan in August 1957 couldn't have known they were glimpsing the future. With the space race revving up and new technological marvels emerging every day-color TV! Teflon pans!-who would give serious consideration to a petite forty-something woman going about her day in a stretchy jumpsuit? She was an anomaly, a head-scratcher. They couldn't have known that someday their city would be filled with Bonnies, sheathed in workout clothes that allowed them to move as they pleased. But that summer, after weekly appearances on NBC's Home show, she knew she was onto something. The morning show was hosted by Arlene Francis and Hugh Downs, and featured her, America's leading fitness expert, alongside some of the biggest names of the day-Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dear Abby's Abigail Van Buren. "We are raising a nation of children with muscles of custard," Bonnie told the hosts. She had a gift for dramatic exaggeration that annoyed her critics. The whole country was falling apart, she said. Now the editors at Sports Illustrated seemed to agree, asking her to appear on the cover of their August 5 issue as both a model of physical fitness and its number one champion. So what if they'd be featuring her during the languid final stretch of summer? A cover was a cover. ...

Product details

• Authors: Danielle Friedman
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 03.01.2023
• EAN: 9780593188446
• ISBN: 978-0-593-18844-6
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 203 mm x 19 mm
• Subject: Guides > Health > Fitness, aerobics, bodybuilding, gymnastics