The all-The Gospel of Gains: How Fitness Culture Went Mainstream

Up until the early 2000s, even though Americans were less obese compared to today, it was implicitly understood that fitness/health-minded people occupied a sort of celebrity status or were different from the slovenly masses, who went to work and then crashed in front of the TV after getting home, eating whatever slop could be scrounged together from leftovers or trips to McDonald’s. There was a sort of bulwark between those rarefied fitness people and everyone else. No one was under much social pressure to assimilate the lifestyle of the former, just as no one watched Pumping Iron expecting to be like Arnold. Or watched The Incredible Hulk expecting to look like Lou Ferrigno. Being a buff or athletic guy in the ’80s, ’90s, and all the way up to the early 2000s, one’s career options to capitalize on this were generally limited to personal training, private security, or acting (which can include the adult variety). Being an action star was out of reach for all but the luckiest or most…