The recreational fitness industry today might be predominantly marketed to and dominated by women, but how did it come to be that way? That is the question multimedia journalist Danielle Friedman explores in Let's Get Physical, an engaging and entertaining examination of the fitness industry from its birth in the postwar era to contemporary times. She astutely covers the cultural challenges associated with the idea of women exercising, like unfounded concerns that strenuous exertion could cause one's uterus to fall out. Friedman addresses gender-based prejudices such as those faced by Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to try to officially enter the Boston Marathon, who was chased down and assaulted by race manager Jock Semple. She also outlines race and class barriers that persist to this day, such as the cost of fitness classes, gyms and studios, and the pervasive whiteness of the fitness industry.
Each chapter takes readers through a particular fitness movement and the women who were its pioneers. Friedman also explores the invention of the sports bra and the rise of women's fitness fashion, and includes an update at the end of the book about where each of these pioneers ended up. She writes, reflecting on this history as a paradigm shift: "when women first began exercising en masse, they were participating in something subversive: the cultivation of physical strength and autonomy." Let's Get Physical details this shift from all angles, celebrating the women who reshaped the modern world along with women's bodies. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer