# Joe Weider, founder of the modern fitness industry, dead at 93 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 23, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764 "2013-03-23T20:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/1 "2013-03-23T20:30:21Z")
[From the LA Times](http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-joe-weider-legendary-bodybuilding-and-fitness-icon-dies-at-93-20130323,0,6121077.story): > [@](#): > > He created the Mr. Olympia event in 1965. Two years later, Weider discovered Schwarzenegger at a body building contest in Europe. > > He soon invited Schwarzenegger to move to California and funded the young bodybuilder’s first apartment in Santa Monica, giving him enough money to make ends meet. Weider also orchestrated Schwarzenegger’s first acting role in a TV movie. > > Along the way, Weider built a multimillion dollar publishing empire which included Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Shape, and Men’s Fitness magazines. If you’ve ever lifted a weight, you owe something to this man. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/2 "2013-03-23T22:25:34Z")
I thought Bernarr Macfadden was the founder of the modern fitness industry. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/3 "2013-03-23T22:45:33Z")
He was certainly an important figure, but I’d argue that anything before Joe doesn’t really count as modern. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/4 "2013-03-23T22:50:02Z")
98-pound weaklings everywhere are in mourning. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/5 "2013-03-24T00:56:29Z")
He kicked sand in Death’s face and stole his girlfriend. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/6 "2013-03-24T02:08:38Z")
Have you forgotten Jack LaLanne? “Francois Henri “Jack” LaLanne (September 26, 1914 - January 23, 2011) was an American fitness, exercise, and nutritional expert and motivational speaker who is sometimes called “the godfather of fitness” and the “first fitness superhero.”” > **[Jack LaLanne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lalanne)** > > Francois Henri LaLanne (/ləˈleɪn/; September 26, 1914 – January 23, 2011) was an American fitness and nutrition guru and motivational speaker. He described himself as being a "sugarholic" and a "junk food junkie" until he was aged 15. He also had behavioral problems, but "turned his life around" after listening to a public lecture about the benefits of good nutrition by health food pioneer Paul Bragg. During his career, he came to believe that the country's overall health depended on the healt Here are some of his videos: [http://www.youtube.com/results?search\_query=jack+lalanne&search=Search](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jack+lalanne&search=Search) ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/7 "2013-03-24T14:49:05Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > If you’ve ever lifted a weight, you owe something to this man. …ehh. I’d say Joe was less about fitness and more about promoting bodybuilding and himself. He was pretty much bodybuilding’s Don King. Buddies and I still joke about how he tried to make everything about weightlifting a “Weider Principle.” ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/8 "2013-03-24T16:03:33Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Have you forgotten Jack LaLanne? > > “Francois Henri “Jack” LaLanne (September 26, 1914 - January 23, 2011) was an American fitness, exercise, and nutritional expert and motivational speaker who is sometimes called “the godfather of fitness” and the “first fitness superhero.”” he was the Martha Stewart of fitness. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/9 "2013-03-24T19:14:49Z")
Yeah, pretty much. He was on TV during the day in the early days of television and was watched mainly by stay-at-home moms. Plus he wore those high-in-the-crotch jump suits and slipper style shoes, and he was always so…upbeat. He was regarded by many at the time as being somewhat effete. He was a cool guy, though. I was a boy when he was on the air but as I grew older I came to like and admire him. Regarding Weider, like **epbrown01** said, he was sort of the Don King of bodybuilding. And while not quite at King’s level of chicanery, he still promoted a ton of supplements and weightlifting products that accomplished nowhere near the benefits his ads led you to believe. He knew his audience and how to manipulate them. In other words he knew what sells, and what sells isn’t always the truth. Basically he was a publisher of weightlifting magazines who made most of his money off of the mail-order items he sold through them, and secondarily he was a promoter of bodybuilding contests whose main function was to grow the audience for his magazines. But his shortcomings and level of dishonesty were rather minor and he had his good side too, often helping bodybuilders and others financially and/or with free advertising and business advice that gained him nothing. All in all I’d say he was basically a good guy - though a shrewd and hard-nosed businessman - whose primary impact on fitness in America was to bring Arnold Schwarzengger here, but it was really Schwarzengger’s charisma and star power that kicked off the interest in fitness in America that some are now attributing to Joe Weider. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/10 "2013-03-24T20:37:00Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > [From the LA Times](http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-joe-weider-legendary-bodybuilding-and-fitness-icon-dies-at-93-20130323,0,6121077.story): > > If you’ve ever lifted a weight, you owe something to this man. Yes and no, history is often more complex than it seems. Modern physical culture had a lot of fathers. Weider was certainly an influential figure, but also a controversial one and the direction he took physical culture from the 60’s and 70’s onward was[not applauded by everyone.](http://www.ironmanmagazine.com/muscle-smoke-and-mirrors/) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/11 "2013-03-24T20:51:39Z")
Is he also the father of the overpriced, overhyped nutritional supplement, or was he just one of the beneficiaries of that industry’s rise? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-weider-founder-of-the-modern-fitness-industry-dead-at-93/653764/12 "2013-03-24T21:04:31Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Is he also the father of the overpriced, overhyped nutritional supplement, or was he just one of the beneficiaries of that industry’s rise? Supplements were around long before Weiders rise to prominence. All BB mags pimped supplements, Weider was not alone on that train.