BUZZ
Trump focus on health is not ‘inclusive’ enough
A history professor said she generally supports President Donald Trump’s interest in promoting health but criticized his plan to revive the Presidential Fitness Test.
“Trump is reviving an outdated and problematic practice for American schoolkids,” reads the headline of Professor Natalia Petrzela’s recent essay for MSNBC.
It came after President Trump announced on Thursday he would be bringing back the “iconic” test, which includes a one-mile run, sit-ups, and push-ups. President Barack Obama changed the program to get rid of the competition element in 2013.
The President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition will promote “excellence in physical education” and “champion access to fitness and healthy living for all Americans,” Trump announced.
The council will include Super Bowl winning kicker Harrison Butker, champion golfer Bryson DeChambeau, former New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera, and other former professional athletes. But Petrzela focused on just one person, a WWE wrestler, who appeared at the Friday event.
Petrzela criticized the appearance of a WWE wrestler, Paul Levesque, at the press conference.
“The swaggering, solo, white machismo is obvious — and about as far a cry as it gets from Beyoncé dancing with a cafeteria full of New York City schoolkids to promote the Obamas’ program,” The New School professor wrote. “And of course, the WWE is primarily an entertainment franchise, not an athletic one, a fact that is both perfectly on brand for the Trump administration and further suggests this effort might be more show than substance.”
“I too am deeply concerned about the lack of exercise among American children and adults, and am thrilled this is an administration priority,” she wrote.
But the professor also criticized Trump for not focusing on an “inclusive” approach to sports like that of President John F. Kennedy.
“Gone is JFK’s emphasis on inclusive, publicly funded recreation,” she wrote. “And, crucially, JFK supported vaccines and Medicare.”
Professor Petrzela regularly comments on the problematic parts of exercise and sports culture, listing “20th-Century U.S. history, especially of politics, society, and culture, with a focus on gender, sexuality, race, and identity,” as a research interest.
She also wrote a book about “white supremacy” and its connections to exercise.
While running “became popular with environmentalists…it’s important to point out that access was never totally equal, if you lived in a neighborhood that didn’t have safe streets or streets that were not well lit,” she previously said.
“Women were catcalled. People of color were thought to be committing a crime,” she said. “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.”
However, she also criticized the American Historical Association for taking a public stance against Israel during a meeting in January.
“Passing this resolution as the view of the AHA stands to hurt the historical profession and academia writ large,” she said in January 2025. The professor also warned it would open up academia to further criticism and “attacks” from President Trump.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: President Donald Trump announces the return of the Presidential Fitness Challenge; White House/YouTube
