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Chloe Loung

To understand why German-Chinese athlete Sofie Fella felt compelled to design a T-shirt featuring the Chinese character da – Mandarin for “big” – one must understand the rigid expectations of Asian femininity.
In cities like Shanghai, Fella’s hometown, the “ideal” body is more than an aesthetic – it is a signifier of virtue. This mindset is encouraged from a young age.
Even as a Harvard University rugby player and now international competitor – she plays for the German national team – Fella has not been spared the scrutiny that follows Asian women throughout their lives.
Though now celebrated for her strength on the field, Fella started her athletic journey in a ballet studio, one that provided a brutal introduction to body scrutiny.
“We had a scale in our classroom, and you had to weigh yourself in front of other people,” she says. “The messaging was clear: small is beautiful. Don’t be too muscular; that’s manly. I was always bigger than the petite Chinese dancers, and I was taught to shrink.”

During the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Fella watched the rise of athletes like freestyle skier Eileen Gu and figure skater Alysa Liu with a profound sense of recognition. Both were strong, confident Asian women, biracial and bilingual. Neither were seen as anomalies but instead as the emerging norm.
“Asian women don’t just need to be a small voice,” Fella says. “You’re allowed to take up space and be successful in your own way and be proud.”
She now seeks to cultivate that sense of possibility through her school outreach, where she holds discussions about women in sports with students across Asia.
This spring, she will return to her old school, Shanghai American School (SAS), to meet with a new generation of female students – a full-circle moment.
“If someone had come into [SAS] when I was 15 and talked about all of this – body image, confidence, being strong and feminine at the same time – it would have made such a difference in my life,” she says.












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The year after she graduated and headed to Harvard, the girls’ rugby programme at her high school doubled in size.
“All the parents must have been like, ‘Oh, women’s rugby. That’s the way to Harvard,’” she says with a laugh.
The irony is not lost on her: a sport once dismissed by many Asian parents as too rough, too masculine and a distraction from academics had suddenly become a viable, even strategic, extracurricular activity.
That is another feature of the Asian cultural landscape, she notes: the tendency to value activities only if they serve a measurable, résumé-worthy outcome.
“A lot of parents choose for their kids what their passion should be, instead of letting them develop that passion,” she says.
The result is a predictable life trajectory that is exhausting in its own way: a childhood engineered for academic success, followed by a relentless nine-to-six professional life that leaves little room for fitness.
That is why she gives talks at schools, started her da clothing line – to which she is introducing a Cheongsam-inspired scrunchie collection – and is redefining what active beauty looks like.

She also leads Girls Lift Girls, a community she co-founded with CrossFit athlete Gemma Ashworth in Dubai that has since expanded to Hong Kong and Australia.
It began as a series of casual dinners for like-minded women who enjoyed being active and has evolved into a movement to rewrite the script around female fitness in Asia.
“We wanted to create a space where women could be vulnerable about how they feel in the gym, or [express] why they’re scared to lift heavier,” Fella says.
From paddleboarding sessions and run clubs to yoga flows and functional fitness workshops, each event is calibrated to suit women at their level – not the level where a fitness influencer says they should be.
In Hong Kong especially, Fella has noticed a unique sensitivity.
“You have to hold their hands a little more … The goal is to push them just enough to realise how strong they already are, without scaring them off.”
The ripple effects of that community-based approach have been tangible. Fella points to her Indian friend Mansi Natarajan, who was raised in Japan and never played sports growing up. Through their friendship, Natarajan began attending Fella’s rugby matches before trying yoga and later graduating to lifting weights.
Today, Natarajan leads Girls Lift Girls events in Hong Kong herself, a full-circle transformation.
“That’s the power of environment,” Fella says. “She was suddenly surrounded by women’s sport, by strong women, and it changed what she thought was possible for herself.”

Fella’s aim is to erase the fear that being fit will make a woman less feminine or desirable, replacing that with the simple joy of discovering what your body can do – whether 25 or 75, as it is just as important for an older woman to get active as it is for a younger one.
Fella’s mother, a Shanghai native, would comment on her daughter’s broadening shoulders and legs, which did not fit the traditional Asian definition of femininity.
When Fella first handed her mother the da T-shirt – its design meant to reclaim the word “big” as a badge of strength – the response was a quiet, almost reflexive, rejection.
“Why?” her mother asked, her tone hovering between confusion and disapproval. “Small is better,” she said.
Fella felt no resentment.
“I want to be sensitive to Chinese culture,” she explains. “It’s not her fault … It’s the environment she was brought up in, passed down through generations. That is what she learned femininity looked like.”
Fella is concerned about her mother’s ability to build and preserve muscle mass later in life. Her lack of it is a consequence, she believes, of a lifetime spent in an environment that discouraged physical strength in women.
“While you’re young, you might care about looking lean or skinny. But when you can’t pick up your grandkids – or you can’t even get off the toilet by yourself – you won’t be thinking about how ‘bulky’ your arms are,” Fella says bluntly.
Research shows that women can lose up to 30 per cent of their muscle mass between the ages of 30 and 80, with the decline accelerating sharply after menopause.
Research pioneered by John O. Holloszy at the Washington University School of Medicine reveals that after 30, the body begins to shed 3 to 8 per cent of its muscle mass per decade – a decline known as sarcopenia that accelerates once we cross the 50-year mark.
While men also experience this decline, women face a double disadvantage. They tend to have lower muscle mass to begin with, and the hormonal shifts of menopause strip away the protective effects of oestrogen on bone density and lean tissue.
As Fella discovered, strength training, even initiated later in life, can slow the decline and restore functional capacity – though it is easier to build and preserve muscle in your twenties and thirties than to claw it back in your sixties.
“The muscle I’m building now is my retirement fund. I look at my mom, who doesn’t have that base, and I worry about her posture, her mobility. Exercise is the one pill you can take every day to live longer.”
Today, that T-shirt her mother first disliked has become her favourite. She wears it around the house, sends photos of it to her friends, and wears it when her daughter brings her to the gym.
“Oh, this is Sofie’s project,” she tells admirers, her voice now laced with pride. “You should get one too.”
Fella says: “If I can change even my mom’s perspective on women in sport and strong women, I think I can change a lot of people’s minds.”
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Wellness

This rugby player is fighting Asian beauty standards by showing women it’s OK to be strong

German-Chinese rugby player Sofie Fella, who competes for the German national team, wants women to understand that  they can be physically strong if they want to be, and that they are allowed to “take up space”. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Fella plays for the German women’s rugby team while wearing a Cheongsam-inspired scrunchie she designed herself.

Fella’s aim is to erase the fear that being fit will make a woman less feminine or desirable. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Fella says she has not been spared the scrutiny that follows Asian women throughout their lives. Photo: Jonathan Wong

At 70, she’s now a powerlifter. How this retired teacher refuses to slow down

Anjali Hazari, a former marathoner and mountaineer, trains at the Stanley Ho Sports Centre complex in Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong, ahead of her first powerlifting competition. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Hazari trains at Stanley Ho Sports Centre complex in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Anjali Hazari celebrates after finishing the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in January 2017. Photo: Anjali Hazari

Hazari celebrates after finishing the Hong Kong Marathon in February 2017. Photo: Anjali Hazari

Hazari trains at the Stanley Ho Sports Centre complex in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Hazari is pictured after climbing Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, in August 2024. Photo: Instagram/akankshahazari

Hazari works out at the Stanley Ho Sports Centre complex in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Hazari is pictured celebrating her 69th birthday with her daughter Akanksha and son Akhil in February 2025. Photo: Anjali Hazari

She was a 102kg diabetic with a ‘death wish’. After losing 40kg, she’s thriving

Award-winning chef Keya Wingfield overate to numb her grief after the death of her newborn son in 2021, reaching a weight of 102kg by 2023. She shed 40kg by 2025. Photos: Instagram/keyaandco, courtesy of Keya Wingfield

Keya Wingfield with her newborn, Daksh, who died in 2021. She named her snack food distribution company after him, keeping his memory alive. Photo: Instagram/keyaandco

Wingfield works out at the local gym. Photo: courtesy of Keya Wingfield

Wingfield in 2021 (left), and a recent photo, after she vowed to take care of herself for her daughter’s sake and lost nearly 40kg. Photo: Keya Wingfield 

The cake Wingfield created in the finale of the Food Network’s Spring Baking Championship in 2021. Photo: Amazon 

Wingfield holds bags of Keya’s Snacks crisps in an Instagram post from 2025. Photo: Instagram/keyaandco

Wingfield and her brother Abhishek Desai at the launch of Keya’s Snacks in March 2025. Photo: Keya Wingfield

Wingfield with her daughter, Uma. Photo: courtesy of Keya Wingfield

Just 9 minutes a day: the mobility routine that can help you age better

Mobility expert Joe Yoon identifies movement restrictions in clients, gradually correcting them so they see improvements not just in performance, but in injury prevention. Photo: joetherapy.com

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Yoon demonstrates an overhead squat. Photo: Instagram/hijoeyoon

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No time for daily exercise? Being a weekend warrior can have the same health benefits

Santina Philips (right), a personal trainer whose gym in Hong Kong runs high-intensity workouts three times a week,  known as “Bear Camp”, for people too busy to exercise daily, with a client, Kimberly Kwok, a mother of two who runs multiple businesses. Photo: Dickson Lee

Santina Philips (right), a personal trainer and founder of Ursus Fitness, whose gym runs high-intensity weekend workouts known as Bear Camp, with client Kimberly Kwok, a participant in them. Photo: Dickson Lee

Kimberly Kwok, busy during the week raising her children and running multiple businesses, has been doing high-intensity Bear Camp weekend workouts at Ursus Fitness for 10 years. Photos: Dickson Lee

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Weekend workouts can be a starting point from which participants gradually add more exercise sessions as they start to feel the benefits, says Santina Philips, personal trainer at Ursus Fitness in Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

Kimberly Kwok is aware of the need to avoid overexertion at weekend workouts and mindful about preventing muscle strain and fatigue, making sure to stretch, warm up and cool down. Photo: Dickson Lee

Lifestyle

Health & Wellness

Health

German-Chinese national athlete Sofie Fella urges girls and women to transcend traditional Asian femininity norms and build strength


German-Chinese national athlete Sofie Fella urges girls and women to transcend traditional Asian femininity norms and build strength.


This rugby player is fighting Asian beauty standards by showing women it’s OK to be strong

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}German-Chinese national athlete Sofie Fella urges girls and women to transcend traditional Asian femininity norms and build strength

German-Chinese national athlete Sofie Fella urges girls and women to transcend traditional Asian femininity norms and build strength