Name: Sydney Royce

Social Justice Group: Body Image and Social Media

Date of Fieldwork: January 12, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Natalia Petrzela

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?

Our first interview was with Natalia Petrzela. Natalia is a writer, professor, activist, podcast host, mother, and fitness expert. She teaches a class at The New School exploring the topics of gender, race, and identity. She has also written several books, and one of them is about the obsession with fitness.

She said that because of the unrealistic standards in the media, many women feel the need to workout and over exercise. This is one example of how the misrepresentation in the media can affect women. A lot of women feel that in order to get the “perfect body” they need to obsess over some form of fitness. She even said a lot of fitness instructors even encourage this behavior by making comments about eating habits and trying to get a “bikini body.” Because of the media there are often “beauty trends” which usually switch up every few years. For example for a little while everyone wanted to look like the Kardashians and have a curvy body with big boobs and a big butt. The new “beauty trend” is to be the opposite and be very skinny with a 90’s model body. This is  harmful because it contributes to women wanting to try different forms of working out to change their body.

In our society there’s this huge pressure to exercise not only to be healthy, but to lose weight. What women view in the media as desirable or as the new “body trend” is what they want to see in themselves. This culture of exercising to change your body is toxic, and instead we should view fitness as doing it to raise endorphins, be active, and to be healthy. This interview really changed my perspective and made me more aware of this obsession with exercise. I really enjoyed this interview, and I’m so glad my group got to talk to Natalia.