![]() ![]() There are obvious social class dimensions, as working out became “another form of conspicuous consumption” while “unfit behavior like smoking or reclining in front of the TV with a beer signified lower-class status.” (Never mind, she notes, that the poor are too busy working to have time to exercise.) Cynically, Ehrenreich observes that the $6 billion industry of employee wellness programs, which aim to reduce employer health insurance expenditures, has no measurable impact on corporations’ health-care spending. ![]() To Ehrenreich, who earned a PhD in cellular immunology from Rockefeller University, this was like saying that the fire department is indeed. She traces this “surge of interest in physical fitness” to the 1980s, when disillusionment with the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement led to an inward turn, a type of self-involvement “where if you could not change the world or even chart your own career, you could still control your own body.” For women, accustomed to decades of societal domination, “ ‘control over one’s body’ could be understood as a serious political goal.” Jane Fonda led the charge with her massively popular aerobics videos, accompanied by the rise of a multibillion-dollar empire of gyms and fitness centers. But, the actual genesis for Natural Causes was a 2008 article in Scientific American describing how the immune systemmacrophages, to be preciseactually abets the growth and spread of tumors. Beyond the doctor’s office, Ehrenreich takes us into the world of wellness, where, from CrossFit to gluten-free diets, we obsessively follow the latest trends that promise eternal health. ![]()
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