The last couple of years has seen a meteoric rise in the number and influence of Fitness instructors. It is a rather easy sell these days to grab people's attention with chiseled and near perfect bodies at the gym doing what they do best.
I'd say it really exploded when the entrepreneur and intellectual class started to get really interested in the art of fitness and discipline. A good number of people now tie building their fitness with overall life success which might be a stretch, but has some merit.
On the flip side there are tons of people who have taken the fitness craze to extreme levels. The meaning of fit, especially for men, seems to have evolved from looking like a David Beckham to an Arnold Schwarzenegger buoyed by all the Steroids and supplements available for cheap in the market these days.
Women aren't quite left out. While the fitness craze may be less, there's certainly a Body positivity craze very much in full swing. We've come to accept so many unnatural solutions it has more or less blurred the line between what's real and what isn't. I think now there's only what's healthy and what isn't.
Yet for all these observations lots of Western countries still struggle with Obesity. While gym lifestyle is popular, it certainly hasn't come to stay as a culture, at least not yet. I don't think it's that popular just yet to affect an entire culture. Not to mention it isn't exactly cheap.
I think being healthy and staying fit need to be less glorified. Japan for instance has one of the lowest Obesity rates because they have figured out the real enemy - Sedentary lifestyle and processed foods. Just simply getting those two things right does more for us than we can possibly imagine.
Sure, hit the gym if you can and be consistent, but you don't have to work yourself to heart attack levels just to meet an ideal when the solution is simply to make movement a hobby.
