This is not just the name of a gym, but a sad reflection of what fitness has become, especially here in the USA. In days of old there were no such places as gyms, because physical labor kept our countries citizens physically fit. For women, our fitness regimen might consist of carrying water from the creek or the pump in more recent times, to the house to do dishes or wash the kids, we lifted cast iron skillets to make our dinner, we kneaded the bread dough with our hands, we walked to town to do errands, and we helped with the chores on the farm. The men’s fitness routine, may include getting up at the crack of dawn to throw bales of hay to feed the animals, carrying water to their water troughs, cranking the tractor to start it or in earlier times, following behind a horse drawn plow. Today, however, most of us work behind a desk, and then come home and watch television, play video games, or sit at a computer for hours. 
The biggest fitness activity that many of us get is to carry out the garbage once a week. For this reason a culture industry was created that told us we could get the same result by going to a gym with every imaginable machine available to work all of our muscle groups. These gyms have been constructed in such a way that draws us in, even if just for the appearance of health consciousness. They show tan, sculpted bodies on their commercials, and convince us that for a “small” price, we can look just like the models that they hire for this reason. Of course, most of us do not look like models, and as we have discussed before, (see The Cover of Baudrillard), even the models that they hire, probably did not start out looking anything like they do in their television and magazine advertisements. On top of this, some of the models, especially the male ones, have taken steroids, which is not only unhealthy, but also not something that most of us would do. However, they don’t advertise that they take steroids, so they construct the impression, that just by joining their gym and working out three times per week we can look just like them.
The biggest fitness activity that many of us get is to carry out the garbage once a week. For this reason a culture industry was created that told us we could get the same result by going to a gym with every imaginable machine available to work all of our muscle groups. These gyms have been constructed in such a way that draws us in, even if just for the appearance of health consciousness. They show tan, sculpted bodies on their commercials, and convince us that for a “small” price, we can look just like the models that they hire for this reason. Of course, most of us do not look like models, and as we have discussed before, (see The Cover of Baudrillard), even the models that they hire, probably did not start out looking anything like they do in their television and magazine advertisements. On top of this, some of the models, especially the male ones, have taken steroids, which is not only unhealthy, but also not something that most of us would do. However, they don’t advertise that they take steroids, so they construct the impression, that just by joining their gym and working out three times per week we can look just like them.
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