A Physical Education with Casey Johnston

A Physical Education with Casey Johnston

From The War on Cars by The War on Cars, LLC

May 12, 2026 · 57 min · Episode 172

About this episode

Casey Johnston discusses the structural barriers to health and exercise in America and the role of cars in physical activity.

Just as it is with road safety, so much of how Americans talk about health pushes the responsibility for eating right and exercising onto the individual, ignoring the many structural barriers that prevent people from making "good" choices. Through her newsletter, She's a Beast , and her bestselling book A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting , Casey Johnston cuts through the noise, making connections across various disciplines to help people rethink their notions about health, exercise and body positivity. Casey joins The War on Cars to talk about how "at the scale of daily life, cars should be systematically discouraged, in order to even begin to contend with the deaths and health decline from a lack of physical activity." *** Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!*** Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile , out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find out the latest about our book tour at…

People in this episode

Host: The War on Cars

Guest: Casey Johnston

Topics covered

  • health
  • exercise
  • body positivity
  • diet culture
  • road safety

Keywords

  • health
  • exercise
  • diet culture
  • body positivity
  • road safety
  • Casey Johnston
  • physical activity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Penguin Random House, Bookshop.org

Books & works: A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, She's a Beast, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile

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