These days, performing physical exercise as a means of staying healthy and maintaining an attractive physical appearance is pretty much a common concept. That’s why Hollywood actors, TV stars and the First Lady lift weights, do cardio and all sorts of other physical exercises.
But I wonder if there are many examples for this type of behaviour to be found in history, and if so, when did it start?
Traditionally, members of the lower classes of society had no choice but to earn a living doing hard physical labor on the field and in factories, walking long distances etc. Obviously, these people did not choose this lifestyle. They did not pump iron and work their butts off in order to look lean and ripped.
People rather strove to be affluent enough to lead a sedentary lifestyle like working in an office or maybe not having to work at all.
The rich and famous, i. e. kings, queens, aristocrats and merchants etc. on the other hand did not need to walk long distances, they used their horse carriage. They had their underlings to do all the physical work.
But when did rich people start to workout? One example was the Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1837 - 1898 ( Empress Elisabeth of Austria - Wikipedia ).
Elisabeth used to ride horses and walk for hours on end every day. She took up fencing in her 50s. She had a private gymnasium with mats, rings and parallel bars. (One visitor famously described visiting the imperial palace and finding the Empress hanging upside down from her rings, doing her workout. That was unheard of in these days.
So again: What’s the history of working out? Are there other instance of famous and/or affluent people in history who voluntarily chose to do physical exercises?
Greeks and Romans? Original gymnasia and all that.
Obviously there are exceptions, but as a tend:
If you go back to the medieval times, being thin was viewed as less attractive than being fat. If you were thin, you were poor and had to work for a living; if you were fat, you were wealthy.
These days the perception has reversed. Now, if you’re thin it’s probably because you have the time and money to eat well and have a good exercise program/trainer; if you’re far it’s because you’re poor and eat junk food.
Obviously that’s an obscene generalization, and it’s certainly not any kind of universal law. But I suspect there’s some truth in it on a larger trend level in Western society.
The lifestyle originally did encourage some work. Elevators were unhead of. Practicing fencing or similar “work related” exercise would be common. Except for long distances, everything was walking - have you been in one of those palaces? It’s a decent stroll from one end to the other. Even getting on and off a horse, etc. was more work than getting into a car. going around a local town was most often done on foot due to the parking problem - unless you were going to another location (quite a distance) or the destination was a full complex with stables, where would you put your horse?
But yes, starting in the 1600s and 1700s the ones rich enough to afford excessive food seemed to grow fat. Fat was thus associated with successful and rich. Henry VIII was allegedly at the point where he had to go through some doors sideways due to a fondness for fried chicken. Today, with the cost of exercise facilities and the cheap cost of bad foods like high sugar, high fat foods - we associate fat with poor. In the days when people could often not afford enough to stay alive, a lot of food was seen as a good thing.
I recall a Newhart episode in the 1980s where Joanna opened a fitness studio. This was a new thing apparently. The people signing up were being referred to as “health nuts” and the like.
Let’s face it, smoking, drinking and non-activity were quite popular even a generation ago.
Certainly in the 19th century, Theodore Roosevelt, born into a life of wealth and a sickly asthmatic child, ignored doctors advise and preached The Strenuous Life. He died relatively young, at 60, but undertaking a hazardous journey into unexplored parts of the Amazon in 1913 and the death of his son Quentin in World War I (in outmoded equipment because the Wilson administration was too inept to build first class aeroplanes) contributed to that.The Strenuous Life - Wikipedia
It harkens back to Muscular Christianity, which draws from Rousseau, which picks up from John Locke, and on and on.
For other famous people, see Harry Truman and his vigorous walks, the Kellogg brothers and their sanitarium, and even Ben Franklin and his fondness for swimming.
Remember that many of those ‘rich & famous’ became King or whatever through taking it by force from someone weaker.
If you were a warrior or knight, you better stay in shape enough to beat the next guy who wants to take you on. As King, you had to be able to fight off those who thought they should be King instead – often your own sons!
Exercise that involves lots of expenditure on equipment and organization and provides excitement for the participants has always been a status symbol for wealthy people.
Examples from the past include jousting, hunting, and more recently riding to hounds (foxhunting) and polo.