We Are Thinking About Fitness All Wrong

On my second day living in New York, a cyclist called me a stupid bitch. What happened was my mom, a step-count maniac and shopping addict, had forced an Apple Watch upon me as a postgrad “gift.” She insisted that it was necessary for a professional woman to have. Why? I already owned a phone. All day, the dumb device pinged me to “Stand” and “Breathe.” “Breathe,” it nudged me again, as I was crossing an intersection from the office on my way home. Wrist to my chest, I inhaled exaggeratedly, peevishly, so preoccupied with performing health to Apple, Inc., that I didn’t notice the bike hurtling in my direction. What a great allegory, it turns out, for the narcissism induced by contemporary fitness and wellness culture.

Exercise has become a mass obsession in America, the organizing axis around which everything else — clothing, food, even work — revolves. Last year in the United States, fitness memberships reached an all-time high of 72.9 million; cookie and pretzel sales fell while workout-friendly alternatives like beef jerky and nutrition bars flew off the shelf. Normal people have developed “protein anxiety”: If Rule 34 of the internet dictates that every topic has a porn equivalent, then Rule 34 of contemporary nutrition is that every recipe has a sad cottage-cheese knockoff. Gen Z is purportedly the “swolest generation.” Gyms have become the new bars, offices, and hotels. At Chelsea Piers, where membership starts at $220/month, you can access state-of-the-art equipment, but also co-working lounges, day care, nutrition coaches, and exclusive social events.

The concept of paying to exert your body in the air-conditioned indoors is a new and absurd civilizational invention. (Imagine explaining Equinox to medieval serfs.) Our modern, equipment-laden gym didn’t arise until “Godfather of Fitness” Jack LaLanne conceived of it in the 1930s, growing in popularity as the American labor force transitioned from industrial manufacturing to information work. Many of us wouldn’t need the extra physical toil if our jobs weren’t so sedentary. And many of us who are on our feet all day — retail associates, line cooks — neglect mobility. “I look this way, but I’m strong and I’m pain-free,” Norah Myers, a midsize disabled Pilates instructor and TikTok personality, posted in response to criticism over her appearance. “And that’s what Pilates is actually for.”

In a well-functioning society, it should be easy to be healthy. The other day, I walked a robust two miles just scouting for a midday almond croissant. That kind of casual movement would have been impossible in the car-infested Dallas suburb where I grew up. But whereas the world’s healthiest countries (Japan, Spain) incentivize good lifestyle habits with pedestrian-friendly urban planning and accessible fresh produce, Americans have turned health into a hypercompetitive individual luxury. According to Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, historian and author of the book Fit Nation, fitness became a “socially acceptable form of conspicuous consumption” around the 2007–08 recession, as social media took off. Flaunting parties and designer clothes became tacky, but boutique exercise was fine. “You may be spending lavishly, but you’re investing in pursuit of health, which our culture sanctifies, especially when you’re visibly working hard to achieve it,” she said in an interview. This dynamic only intensified during the pandemic.

Now, those who can afford it are encouraged toward escalating levels of self-obsession, buying $300 Oura rings for the excitement of waking up to a barely passing sleep score. A few months ago, at a dinner party, my younger sister’s volleyball teammate’s dad fessed up to eating around 80 supplements a day. “Have you heard of Andrew Huberman?” he asked me. (Meanwhile, a third of Americans have stopped buying eggs because they’re too expensive.) To some extent, I get it. In an increasingly tumultuous world, everyone is looking for meager forms of control. “When you become strong, the world becomes less scary, and life is ever so slightly less able to crush you,” the novelist Jordan Castro wrote in Harper’s about his lifting habit. Leftists are getting swole for the resistance. “340 on the squat tonight, Republicans are weak as fuck,” progressive New York City councilmember Chi Ossé tweeted last week. But the pursuit of control can easily spiral into paranoia, and even the most well-meaning people can lose sight of the bigger picture.

Our individual gym and wellness practices can seem futile as the Trump administration rolls back pollution regulations, terminates funding for potentially lifesaving scientific research, and lays off food and drug safety monitors. (Even worse, your Fitbit data might be mined for RFK Jr.’s autism registry.) America is still one of the only developed countries without universal health care, and millions would lose their Medicaid coverage if Trump got his way. All while the cultural noise about what you should and should not do with your body creates more disorder: We have become so gung ho about consuming protein that we’re in a position of having to rediscover fiber, increasing our risk of colon cancer. And the gym might come at the expense of connection: “I often reflect that I see people in the gym more than I see my mum or any family member,” a charity worker in London told The Guardian.

One of the most viral videos of 2025 is a morning routine posted by the online fitness coach Ashton Hall, a Patrick Bateman copycat for the Instagram era. Starting his day at 3 a.m., the shredded 29-year-old rips off his mouth tape, dunks his face in ice-filled Saratoga spring water — tap apparently will not do — and breezes through three types of exercise before finally parking himself at his computer monitor. Besides some disembodied service workers, there is no one else in the video. Watching it, I thought to myself, No wonder we’re in a loneliness crisis. The narrow frame of social media excludes everyday forms of community gathering — Asian elders practicing Tai Chi, neighborhood teens playing pickup basketball — that are essential to our civic health. A leftist soccer league that plays in Williamsburg’s Sternberg Park has helped integrate asylum seekers into the city, offering food, clothing, and friendship: “I can’t name all the things they do for us,” one 22-year-old player from Guinea said of his Brooklyn teammates.

The other day, at the triangular plaza near my apartment, where construction workers and longtime residents of the neighborhood congregate, I saw an older Black man bent in downward dog. Hands on the pavement, he progressed calmly through a sequence of yoga poses: Warrior One, Chaturanga. I’d been hunched over my laptop writing all day; I kind of wanted to stretch, too. “Do you take classes here?” I asked out of curiosity. “No,” he said warily, and I could tell he thought I was just another boutique-yoga-obsessed transplant. I’d actually meant the free-movement workshops our local small-business association puts on at the plaza, which lately feels at risk as the neighborhood accumulates ghost kitchens and wine bars, police clamp down on noise, and old-timers get priced out. Of course, that doesn’t have to happen. We can organize — we can insist on a definition of healthy that is actually accessible, and welcoming, to all. In fact, I’ve found that one of the best ways to get your steps in is to go to a march.