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A historian by training, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela has a PhD and is a history professor focused on the 20th century United States. But her new book Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession, which delves into the history of exercise in the United States, really was driven by another passion in her life.
“I was a kid who was very unathletic and very intimidated by what was presented to me as the options to be physically active–which was basically organized sports, physical education class, or maybe dance,” says Petrzela. “Through a funny chain of events where I realized I could take an independent study in PE, I discovered group fitness as a junior in high school. And I realized, wow, there’s this thing called fitness that’s really different from sport and I love it.”
For the next decade, fitness was very much part of Petrzela’s life, separate from her life as a student. “I would always…
