A SPORTS-LOVING NATION. Whether they are fans or players, the millions of Americans who participate in sports are usually passionate about their games. There is more to being a baseball fan than buying season tickets to the home teams games.
A real fan not only can recite each players batting average, but also competes with other fans to prove who knows the answers to the most obscure and trivial questions about the sport. Thats dedication. Dedication short of madness is also what inspired hundreds of thousands of football fans to fill Denvers stadium in dangerously freezing temperatures, not to watch an exciting game but just to demonstrate team support in a pre-Superbowl pep rally, days before the actual contest.
And it is with passion that Americans pursue the latest fitness fad, convinced that staying fit requires much more than regular exercise and balanced meals. For anyone who claims a real desire to stay healthy, fitness has become a science of quantification, involving weighing, measuring, moni-toring, graph charting, and computer printouts. These are the tools for knowing all about pulse and heart rates, calorie intake, fat cell per muscle cell ratios, and almost anything else that shows the results of a workout.