America Shapes Up

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like herds of oestrous gazelles down side streets. Marriages were threatened when one spouse trained for a marathon and never arrived home for an evening meal. Dinner itself became a lean affair of crudités and boiled fish. Executives could be seen pumping iron like buttoned-down Schwarzeneggers. For a while it seemed to be a fad, one more instantaneous American fixation like the twist or the Hula-Hoop. The U.S., after all, had become the country of spectator sports, hadn't it? Walking was all but unAmerican. Long-distance running was for Europeans. "It'll never last," said the wise guys over the second martini at the bar.

Surprise, fellas. The fitness boom has grown for a decade, and improving the body has become an enduring, and perhaps historically significant, national obsession. These days, even the wise guys order a second Perrier. On any given day in the Republic this year, a record 70 million Americans—almost half the adult population—will practice some form of corporeal self-betterment. The figure is a startling one: in 1960 only 24% worked out. Paring it, preening it, pumping it up and pounding it down, the body national is being rejuvenated with a relentless impatience, slimmed with a fanatic dedication. On jogging tracks, in diet clinics and health restaurants and on the operating tables of plastic surgeons, a wholesale attempt to transform the body is avidly purchased with VISA and MasterCard.

The shopping spree is a wild one.

The market for all kinds of sport shoes alone has reached $1 billion, although perhaps a third of those are worn for fashion rather than fitness, in itself a commentary on contemporary values. While a fraction of these expenditures is not fitness related, Americans also spent $5 billion on health foods and vitamins; roughly $50 million for diet and exercise books; $1 billion on cosmetic surgery; another $6 billion for diet drinks and $240 million for barbells and aerobic dance programs. Health clubs and corporate fitness centers add another $5 billion, sporting togs and gear $8 billion, gadgetry—from water filters and orthopedic shoe inserts ($150 a pair) to stop watches—$1 billion more. Bicycling has rolled to $1 billion in annual sales. Equipment for enthusiasts ranges from a Raleigh Rapide ($165) to a $2,000 Gios Torino, plus plastic helmets and even eyeglasses with rear-view mirrors. The latest boom: distance swimming, which already accounts for another $1 billion in swimming pools, goggles, fins, etc. Even walking has become a fitness fad. Major sport shoe companies such as Nike and Etonic will be pacing the market with new models ranging from $55 to $70. The almost new field of sports medicine is now a legitimate $2 billion specialty. The total bill by year's end: more than $30 billion. The surest indicator of the current dominance of fitness was the flood of applicants for the twelfth New York City Marathon last Sunday. New York Road Runner's Club President Fred Lebow spent $1,000 out of his own pocket a decade ago, when 233 marathoners entered the event. This year 25,000 runners applied for 16,000 places. Replete with controversy over mismanagement and under-the-table payments to top amateurs, the race garnered the ultimate American status symbol of sport: a national television contract on which ABC expects to spend $750,000. Says one of the original running