How we all became gym rats

Fifty years ago, few people in Sweden had ever set foot in a gym. Today, more than two million Swedes, over one-fifth of the population, have gym memberships. The journey between those two points says something about how work, the body and the idea of a good life have changed.

After the lazy days of summer, schools and workplaces reopen. As autumn weather arrives, people begin returning to a place that inspires a complicated mixture of affection and resentment: the gym.

What draws so many people to these training spaces? The answer may seem straightforward. Modern life is shaped by health ideals and physical vanity. Who does not want to live healthily, the essay asks, or dream of looking good without clothes?

The piece appears as a deeper essay in Svenska Dagbladet’s long-running Understreckare series. It notes that the views expressed belong to the writer, Björn Lundberg.