A Historical Look at the State of Wellness, Fitness, and Self-Care with Author Danielle Friedman

What do we mean when we talk about "Wellness" today? We know that it’s a multi-billion dollar industry built on products and services centered on “self-care”, and we also understand that to be "well", means much more than purchasing the latest greens powder.

This is part two of a three part series we’ll be speaking with several guests to unpack the nuanced and complex layers of what it means to work, take part, and profit from the (capital W) Wellness industry.

This week we’re chatting with Danielle Friedman about her incredible work on the history of women’s fitness from the 60’s onward and how this history informs our most complex notions of what it means to be well in our bodies today.

Check out Danielle Friedman’s book, Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World

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“We had this moment in time when heroin and anorexic chic was the look.”
— Michelle Pellizzon
“For so much of the 20th century, women’s bodies existed for others — to serve others, to give birth to others… Women existed in a subservient position to men.”
— Danielle Friedman
“Many women through aerobics, through running, through, in some cases, even boutique fitness, began to feel a kind of strength that they hadn’t felt before.”
— Danielle Friedman
“I am so fortunate and so privileged, and I theoretically should be able to make time to exercise every day.”
— Danielle Friedman
“Wellness has been deemed one of the acceptable spaces for women to attempt to seek self-care.”
— Danielle Friedman
“Millennials are getting older. And we can’t all work out at the same pace as we once did.”
— Danielle Friedman
“It’s a lot healthier to take a 20-minute walk around the block than to do nothing.”
— Danielle Friedman
“Sweat is fat crying!”
“If I spend five minutes scrolling through pictures of women whose bodies look very different, I start to feel bad about myself. And so, I’ve done decades of work to get to a place of self-acceptance.”
— Danielle Friedman

Show Notes

  • How do Michelle and Wallis land in the wellness industry?

  • Different complicated aspects of the wellness industry that are still present and how we relate to physical exercise today

  • The social and societal implications of glorifying fitness

  • What fitness means to us

  • What inspired people to exercise?

  • Your relationship to fitness and wellness and your body

  • The birth of the contemporary fitness industry in the 1950s and the explosion of the industry in the 1970s

  • “Strength begets strength!”

  • An attempt to seek self-care

  • Women dominating fitness

  • Why so many women are drawn to wellness culture

  • Seeking wellness through exercise

  • The beauty of walking

  • Working out at home versus at the gym

  • Experiencing a collective burnout

  • How comparing ourselves to others, particularly on social media, has a negative effect on self-esteem

Resources and People Mentioned

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