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Lately the medical community has responded to this anxiety with something called risk analysis. Like many institutions and corporations round the country, the federal Centers for Disease Control is measuring the biological ages of employees against their chronological ages and evaluating their life expectancies. But risks are estimated in a new way, with an emphasis not only on heredity and medical history but on such things as stress factors, income, marriage and the wearing of seat belts (see quiz).
A less portentous signal for the future of fitness medicine, however, has begun in the Midwest. The Wellness Clinic of Salina, Kans. (pop. 40,000), has been quietly transforming the habits of this Midwestern town with surprising results. Family Physician John Schwartz, 37, took a fitness course at the local Y.M.C.A. Impressed with the benefits of the program, he began the Wellness Clinic in 1978 with former Y Instructor John Schlife, 35. The city of Salina contracts with the clinic to stress test its police department and some of its other employees. Most are given special diets and exercise routines. Says Schlife: "People arriving at the clinic don't like how they feel or look. They want an overhaul. We're four years into the program and have many of the people in Salina exercising every day and feeling healthier than ever. Our goal is to get people in good enough shape so that they won't have to go to their doctors so often."
Says Movie Director and ex-Actor John Derek, 55, better known as the husband of Bo Derek, the all but perfect "10": "If we were all nudists, we'd stay in better shape." Mrs. Derek, 24, who lifts weights to stay in shape, is certainly doing her bit for health. She is also one of the many people prospering through the body boom. Among those most happily jogging all the way to the bank are athletes turned instant entrepreneurs. With 1 million copies sold of his two running books, his endorsements for American Express cards and lecture circuit income, the running boom has turned the 1971 $25,000-a-year editor Jim Fixx, 49, into a happily perspiring millionaire. Marty Liquori, 32, an ex-middle distance runner, does a multimillion-dollar business at his 220 Athletic Attic shops in the U.S. Frank Shorter, 34, has 2,000 retail outlets for running gear, an enterprise he presides over from Boulder, Colo. Celebrated Marathoner Bill Rodgers, 33, was surviving on food stamps before he tried to sell running shoes out of a tiny half-basement shop in Boston's Cleveland Circle in 1977. Today sales of Rodgers' enterprises have reached more than $6 million a year, double from 1980. Rodgers