Word: boom
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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...
...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...
...respect, they believe they'll be hard of hearing, and their teeth will fall out, and nobody will want them." The aging are into fitness all right, but anyone who wants to feel really old has only to confront another statistic. The huge baby-boom generation, which statistically has already helped bulge out of shape various U.S. institutions, including schools and colleges, is now age 27 to 35. Most of the 76 million boomers are finished with the drug culture and alternative therapies. Instead, many of them have seized on fitness-ergo, older Americans jog in an attempt...
...first woman with a number in the marathon's history to do so. Today there are 15 million women runners in America, and Switzer, 34, is the head of Avon Cosmetics' $5 million sports department. She believes women's entry into the fitness and health boom is the single most striking fact of her generation. Says she: "I have seen overweight, unhappy, insecure women develop a confidence through running that helps them take risks and experience joy in their lives. It is a testimony to what the human body...
Meanwhile, the health and fitness boom must be a major factor in some very bracing statistics. Heart disease, the nation...