The Gym Culture in the United States

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The Gym Culture in the United States
Whenever we see around in our communities, we observe an increased urge to physically look fit, beautiful, and muscular compared to the previous generations. The increased urge of looking fit and powerful is not a new trend as it is considered as one of the basic desires of the human beings to remain healthy and live a long and happy life. The need of physical fitness is also observed in the early human beings as they relied on the natural survival mechanism which can be summarized in the words, “run for your life” (Andreasson and Johansson 3). The early humans required high standards of physical fitness to survive in the harsh environmental conditions of the planet. However, the physical strength of the early humans was not developed according to a systematic physical and technical standards we observe in the modern gyms. The modern fitness culture has its roots in the 1970s when negative consequences of the industrial revolution started to impact the physical health of the population. The earliest forms of modern exercise were simple jogging, stretching, and push-ups (Andreasson and Johansson 3). However, the modern urge of increased muscular strength, its attraction, and benefits started to appear on the global sphere in the mid-1980s owing to movies depicting the characters having strong physical features depicting elevated levels of capabilities. In this essay, we aim to provide a brief overview of the modern fitness culture, history, and future implications.
As stated earlier, the urge to live longer and healthier has been around since the early developments of human society. The rapid industrial and technological revolutions in the 20th centuries also included a couple of world wars, a cold war, and numerous societal changes at global levels. In the early half of the 20th-century major powers of the world were focused on projecting their nations as “superior” compared to every other human being on the plant (Andreasson and Johansson 3). For instance, the dictatorships of Mousseline and Hitler thrived on the idea of declaring their nations superior to any other nation of the world resulting in the World War 2 and ultimate demise of the idea “superior” race.
After World War 2, world engaged itself in the bloody proxy wars and a major threat of a thermonuclear warfare between the Soviet Union and the United States. The United States government, administrations, and the general population suffered from a “red scare” for decades. Both powers not only engaged themselves in the campaigns like “arms races” and “space race” but also wanted to project their opposite ways of life as healthier and beneficial for human beings. The movies during the Cold War ere show American heroes as more intelligent and physically fit compared to their Soviet counterparts (Andreasson and Johansson 3). Especially, the bodybuilding features and enhanced muscular strengths were focused in such movies. For instance, in the movie Rocky II the American boxer ultimately proved to be more victorious while facing steroid empowered Russian Boxer.
After the Cold War Era, the rapid industrial and technological changes started to have some adverse effects on the physical health of the population. The people tend to sit on chairs for more hours than their historical counterparts (Allen). The life became busier and the people started to dedicate more time to work than their bodies. Another trend which started to cover the American society is the consumption of fast foods. It is an admitted fact, that the increased rates of fast food consumption has increased obesity and made populations vulnerable to chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiac, and psychological disorders (Allen). The situation became more problematic with the public adoption of the internet and modern internet-based cell phones and activities. These trends had direct negative consequences on the physical health of the populations, and therefore, revived interests were shown by the technically crazed population in the physical fitness and made gyms as an important of their daily lives.
From the discussion so far it is clear that the physical needs of the American...