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Bonnie Prudden, a health and fitness pioneer who was born in Manhattan, grew up in Mount Vernon and owned and operated a fitness school in White Plains for many years, died in Tucson, Arizona on Dec. 11 at the age of 97.
Prudden was one of the first fitness gurus to take her techniques and training ideas to national television, appearing regularly on the Today and Home shows in the 1950s. She was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine in 1957 smiling with a leg extended upward in a stretch pose.
Prudden, who followed an early love of dancing to a career as a dancer on Broadway beginning at age 10, was motivated by the fact that American children were growing less fit and more overweight. She believed that children were spending too much time in front of the television and not getting enough exercise.
In 1936, Prudden married Richard S. Hirschland and abandoned her dancing career to be a homemaker in Westchester County. She volunteered for charities and was active in her childrens schools, starting fitness sessions for her daughters and their friends in the mid-1940s at the Pleasant Ridge Elementary School in Harrison.
The program grew from the school to the Girl Scout House to a Knights of Columbus hall. She named her fitness program the Institute for Physical Fitness in 1954.
Prudden gained nationwide fame in 1955 as an author of a report to President Dwight D. Eisenhower that said 56 percent of American children had failed aspects of fitness tests. The study led to the creation of the Presidents Council on Youth Fitness, now the President's Council of Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
With the advent of Presidents Council on Youth Fitness, Prudden began a lifelong campaign that resulted in exercise and swim classes for infants and toddlers and exercises for the blind. Prudden also developed exercise equipment, including one of the first climbing walls.
Prudden had a syndicated show named for her in the 1960s and wrote fitness articles for Sports Illustrated, recorded fitness albums and wrote 15 books. She wrote fitness books for all ages and carried her message to schools, hospitals and prisons in an effort to bring health consciousness to the masses.
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