Time Magazine published a story claiming that exercise is racist and a white supremacy plot, sparking mockery online..The article, titled The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise, asks “how did US exercise trends go from reinforcing white supremacy to celebrating Richard Simmons?”.A progressive private school teacher Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, who is interviewed in the story, claimed that the trend of exercise began in the early 1900s by white Americans, who saw rising immigration and the end of slavery as a threat and felt the need to strengthen their race..Petrzela’s upcoming book Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession, says that during the early twentieth-century, women started exercising to become strong enough to create “more white babies.”.“They’re saying white women should start building up their strength because we need more white babies,” Petrzela told Time Magazine in an interview..“They’re writing during an incredible amount of immigration, soon after enslaved people have been emancipated … This is totally part of a white supremacy project.”.Petrzela described running as a “great equalizer” because almost anyone could do it and it required no equipment..According to Petrzela, even running was “never totally equal, if you lived in a neighbourhood that didn’t have safe streets or streets that were not well lit,” then a person had some limitations..Petrzela said that exercise was not an equalizer, as women were “catcalled” and “people of colour were thought to be committing a crime” when they were out exercising at night..However, Petrzela said that the idea of anyone can run is not equal. It depends on your body type and where you live..“The ‘running is for everybody’ discourse still quite often leaves out the fact that depending on where you live and the body that you live in, it can be a very different kind of experience,” said Petrzela..Americans changed their view of a healthy body in the early twentieth century by switching their mentality from “fat is good” to “skinny is better,” according to Petrzela..“Until the 1920s or so, to be what would be considered today fat or bigger, was actually desirable and actually signified affluence, which is like the polar opposite of today, when so much of the obesity epidemic discourse is connected to socio-economic inequality and to be fat is often to be seen as to be poor,” said Petrzela..Time magazine and Petrzela were mocked on Twitter for the story.
