Is 'exercise' a bad word now?

Our efforts to reject diet culture might be giving it more power.

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This line from my post, “Why are ‘fitness’ people so annoying?” best nails down why I, an annoying fitness person, exercise:

“A big-brain friend of mine said it elegantly: ‘Exercise is the medicine we take for the disease of modernity.’ I’ll say it bluntly: I exercise to fix my fucked-up life.”

I’ve been thinking more about this as I work on a piece…