Are Americans Doing Fitness Wrong?

For many people in the United States, staying in shape means getting in your car and driving to the gym. Movement is something on a to-do list, siloed off from the rest of daily life.

That mentality is quintessentially American, according to Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of history at the New School and the author of “Fit Nation.”

“There’s this crazy paradox where America is, in many ways, the center of the commercial fitness industry, but it’s also a place where by pretty much every measure people are extraordinarily unfit,” she said.

Only about a quarter of American adults get the recommended amount of physical activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and inactivity contributes to 1 in 10 premature deaths.

Part of the problem, Dr. Mehlman Petrzela said, is the “pay-to-play experience” embedded in American fitness culture. There are endless gyms, classes and products that promise to make you fitter, as long as you hand over your credit card.

But there are other ways of approaching exercise. In many nations, movement is baked into everyday life — as a way to commute from one place to another, to build community or to connect with nature. Here are some lessons Americans might learn from those cultures, according to fitness experts.

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