The True Inspiration of Jane Fonda's Workout Book
The True Inspiration of Jane Fonda's Workout Book
What is health if you don't have drinking water
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[Ed. note: Smart Mouth is a diet-free zone and this article is included in that promise.]
Jane Fonda and the Monopoly Menu
In 1981, following the success of her Beverly Hills aerobics studio, Jane Fonda published “The Workout Book.” The book spent months on the New York Times best seller list. Bookstores advertised in newspapers that they were selling copies, focusing on the book’s promise of both a complete exercise regime and an overall philosophy of health and beauty. And, as expected, the bulk of the book consists of nutrition advice and photos of women in leotards and leggings demonstrating the Jane Fonda Workout.
Fonda’s exercise program truly caused a nation-wide sensation, but the little-remembered (or purposefully ignored) last few chapters of the book offer a more revolutionary philosophy of health: Fonda connects air pollution, chemical waste, and workplace hazards to the health of children, adults, and communities and argues that activism on these issues is a key part of any health-conscious lifestyle.
Tucked away in these back pages is a menu for a four-course meal. It features, among other dishes, "Sautéed Mushrooms by Clorox wrapped in Bacon by ITT," a “Tossed Salad of Lettuce by Dow Chemical and Tomatoes by Gulf & Western,” and "Roast Beef by Oppenheimer Industries." (This was inspired by a speech James A. McHale of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture gave during congressional hearings in 1975.) Fonda used this menu to illustrate the extent to which corporate monopolies controlled the food supply, writing that “The giant conglomerates have gained monopoly control over breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” She made the case that these monopolies led to increased food prices and made nutritious food harder to come by. She praised the activism of both the PTA members who pushed for healthier school lunches for children and the farm workers organizing under Cesar Chávez “to demand controls on pesticides that poison them in the fields and consumers down the food chain.”
Fonda always understood fitness as connected to broader political issues: for years, the proceeds from her fitness empire went to advancing New Left causes like solar power and labor rights. In connecting these issues directly to her philosophy of health in “The Workout Book,” Fonda was ahead of her time and ahead of ours. Enormous monopolies continue to control the vast majority of the food in the average grocery store, labor conditions for farmworkers remain dangerous, and communities around the country don't have access to clean water and healthy food, but it is still rare for these issues to be part of the conversation about health and wellness — just look at the relentlessly individual-centered content of the average influencer.
The last chapter of “The Workout Book” is titled “It Is Up To Us.” In it, Fonda writes: “As individuals, we can decide not to eat a ‘real’ dinner at McDonald’s, or Taco Bell’s; we can incorporate more natural, healthful foods into our diet; we can exercise daily. But if our private decisions concerning our own health are to have real meaning, we must actively, aggressively and systematically confront larger questions of national policy.”
More Food Reading:
I've been going on forever about how "organic," functionally speaking, doesn't mean anything. A writer much more patient than I explains why. (Some details are salacious, too.)
Oh, just more evidence that the “worker shortage” is fake.
And what if … WHAT IF we simply didn’t have as many chain restaurants? Would that actually be bad?
Super into this view of the history of sushi in the US, which gives credit to the Moonies. Sun Myung Moon was crazy about fishing and all his followers had to get into it too, in one way or another …
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