“We do not want our children to become a generation of spectators. Rather, we want each of them to be a participant in the vigorous life.” – from “The Soft American” by John F. Kennedy

President-elect John F. Kennedy published those words in Sports Illustrated in December 1960. But he could’ve been referring to American society in 2025. Are we a generation — a society — of spectators? We watch fit people more than ever. Three-quarters of the 100 most-watched primetime shows in 2024 were sportscasts. On the all-time list, 19 of the top 20 are Super Bowls.

Watching sports isn’t a new phenomenon. But watching fitness is. On social media, fitness celebrities are so omnipresent that we’ve had to torture our language to describe them (“fitfluencers”) and what they do (“fitspo,” or “fitspiration” if you’re not into that whole brevity thing).

We see people exercise online and IRL. We see it in movies, on TV, and in commercials. And here’s a telling stat: In the U.S., we have more gyms (55,294) than grocery stores (45,575). And yet, according to the CDC, just 24% of us get the recommended amount of exercise and 25% don’t get any leisure-time physical activity at all. Our society seems to be in the throes of an I-want-to-but-just-can’t-right-now conundrum when it comes to being physically active.

In 2018, 54% of us met the minimum guideline for aerobic exercise (at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity), which is up from 43% in 2008. And 28% met the twice-a-week guideline for resistance exercise, up from 22%. That’s good! “Our data shows that more Americans than ever before are actively engaged in fitness,” said Anton Severin, vice president of research for the Health & Fitness Association.

Gym membership, according to the HFA, is at an all-time high. About 73 million Americans belonged to a health club in 2023. They visited the facility about 1.5 times a week, on average. And then, like a New Year’s resolution trying to survive to see March, a falloff:

Severin noted disparities in the numbers: About 30% of gym members swipe their cards less than once a month, while 11.5% are “highly engaged users,” which means they show up four or more times a week. The trends for both groups are significantly different from the pre-pandemic years. The percentage of low-frequency members has doubled since 2019, Severin said, while the gym-rat cohort has fallen more than 40%.

Those good-news, bad-news numbers are emblematic of Americans’ love-hate relationship with exercise. It’s been that way for a long, long time.