- Project Summary: In no more than 200 words, provide a brief description of your project, including the puzzle you intend to address, the key questions your project attempts to answer, and a brief discussion of how you intend on answering those questions.
This project will analyze the commodification of the female body within the fitness industry. I plan to look at the subject of women in fitness from both the standpoint of female empowerment and how it still establishes itself under the purview of the male gaze. There are many aspects of this subject that reflect questions of the sociological imagination and its place in 21st-century society. I will be examining the impact of social media and fitness influencers on how healthy lifestyles are portrayed and received by audiences, especially young girls and women. I will examine the relationship between fitness influencers and the spreading of false information through social media in relation to pretty and skinny privilege. I also plan to look at racial inequities in who is seen and promoted on platforms such as TikTok and who is hidden or shadowbanned. I am planning to do a content analysis of different fitness pages on TikTok in order to better understand class, race, and appearance-based factors that influence how the female body is commodified in fitness. I will look at which pages gain the most attention, why, and by whom.