#74 - Unpacking Diet Culture in the Dance World with Jenna Jozefowski

This week, we’re talking to Jenna Jozefowski about diet culture in dance spaces... and so much more!

Jenna Jozefowski helps active women learn to lift and get strong with equal parts challenge and compassion. She is a certified personal trainer & kettlebell instructor, Trauma Informed Weightlifting coach, dance teacher, yoga teacher, and semi-retired professional dancer. After years of living and working in industries full of diet-culture, she got sick and tired of watching people (including herself) running themselves into the ground trying to uphold the narrow-minded image of what our culture sees as “healthy” and “fit”. But instead of giving it all up, she decided that she'd rather change the game, call out the BS, extract the good, and help others use movement to build themselves up rather than tear themselves down. 

We had an amazing conversation with Jenna about...

• how the dance world mirrors the weight stigma that exists in the larger world
• how she navigated the nuances of being a straight sized person in the real world, but the largest person in the room in the dance world & how she unlearned the body narratives of the dance world
• how the exclusive body standards of the dance world can keep people who don't fit those standards out of dance spaces (even just for fun!)
• why she chose to stay in the dance & fitness industry as a voice of change
• how she navigates the diet culture & body standards of the dance world & plants seeds of change with her dance students
• why it's so important for performance-based athletes to properly fuel, train & recover, and why she's always the dance teacher with snacks
• the importance of understanding the role of lived experience & genetics in body diversity
• why bodies shouldn't be business cards & you can't exercise your way to a "long & lean" body
• and the power of strength training for flipping harmful body narratives.

You can connect with Jenna on Instagram @itsjennaj, listen to her podcast Tough Cookie Talks wherever you listen to podcasts, and learn how to work with her at itsjennaj.com.

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Here's where to find us:
Sadie Simpson: www.sadiesimpson.com or IG @sadiemsimpson
Naomi Katz: www.happyshapes.co or IG @happyshapesnaomi