Once Christmas is in the rearview mirror, we really start to think about our New Year’s resolutions. After all that merry-making when we spent lots and lots of money, drank too many spiked eggnogs, and watched too many Christmas movies into the wee hours of the morning (with a tin of homemade Christmas cookies in our laps), it’s only natural that we’d want to shake off some of that excess, both mentally and physically. We thought it would be especially fun to look back on the trends that were particularly popular around this time of the year in the 1980s, at the height of Jane Fonda’s spandex, growing public health concerns, and economic frugality.
#1: Get in Shape with Aerobics Classes
Aerobics took the world by storm in the 1980s! With celebrity legends like the incomparable Richard Simmons and the tights-and-leotard-wearing trendsetter Jane Fonda, all of America was either at the gym or in front of their TV, squatting and sweating to the beat. Coined in the 1960s by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, author of the book “Aerobics,” the 1980s really grabbed onto this trend with both leg warmers as both fashion and music rallied to support the aerobics lifestyle.
