Surefire Source of Joy

Today, I exercise not only for physical but also mental strength. I exercise to feel the endorphin high of accomplishment and to manage life’s lows. I exercise to remind myself I can persevere, and that I am not alone. Most of the women I know (as well as the many women I’ve interviewed across the country) consider regular physical activity essential to their emotional and physical well-being. My mom, who is in her early 70s, calls her weekly cardio dance classes “a surefire source of joy.”

I now know how fortunate I am to be living in an era when a growing number of fitness professionals sell exercise not as a punishment, but as a celebration of what our bodies can do; an era when women are encouraged to cultivate strength not for anyone else’s pleasure but our own. Increasingly, it’s just what ladies do.

Danielle Friedman is a journalist in New York City. This essay was adapted from her new book, “Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World,” a cultural history of women’s fitness.