In the pre-dawn darkness, the gym doors close, and the black women start to move. House versions of Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman,” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” blare from speakers as the 30 or so women, most with curves, not angles, grab their jump ropes at the L.A. Fitness club in Capitol Heights. They double-time it as fitness instructor Michelle Gibson counts them down from the front of the class.
“Four more, three more, two more, one!” she yells, twirling her rope. She jumps faster and faster until the rope and her sneakers blur on the hardwood. Her ample bosom strains against the top of her sequined half-camisole.
“Show-off!” yells a woman from the back as Gibson laughs. She demonstrates hinge-kicks high above her own head, and sweat darkens the waistband of the fitted black pants that cling to the uber-roundness of her bottom. “Fight for your sexy!” she commands her class.
(CHAT, 10 a.m.: Discuss body image and race)
No one in this boot camp works out to be model thin. And nearly to a person, they reject any notion that they should, or that that standard is even cute. Or realistic. Or mentally healthy. That’s especially true of Gibson, 41, who has been a fitness instructor for 12 years, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at her.
Like many black women, Gibson describes her 5-foot-4, size 14-plus physique as “thick,” and considers herself ultra-feminine — no matter what the mainstream culture has to say about it.
She’s one of the most full-figured women in the gym, but she’s in love with her body. And it’s a sentiment that syncs perfectly with a recent survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation that focused on African American women. The poll found that although black women are heavier than their white counterparts, they report having appreciably higher levels of self-esteem. Although 41 percent of average-sized or thin white women report having high self-esteem, that figure was 66 percent among black women considered by government standards to be overweight or obese.
(Post, Howard University to host ‘Black Women in America’ panel)
This is not news to Gibson or the other women in her morning boot camp class. They grew up listening to songs like the Commodores’s “Brick House” and hearing relatives extol the virtues of “big legs” and women with meat on their bones.
The notion that all women must be culled into a single little-bitty aesthetic is just one more tyranny, they say. And black women have tools for resisting tyranny, especially from a mainstream culture that has historically presented them negatively, or not at all.
Freed from that high-powered media gaze, generations of black women have fashioned their own definitions of beauty with major assists from literature and music — and help from their friends.
At this gym in Capitol Heights at the crack of dawn, and in myriad other places, that thinking has made black women happier with their bodies than white women in many ways. And in some ways, it’s put them on the slippery slope toward higher rates of obesity.
Source: Washington Post
February 28, 2012 at 5:06 pm
This poll contradicts with the increasing multiple negative health impacts that the “burden” of urban living is putting on Blacks, especially the women.
Perceived self esteem is very, very important. Being secure and healthy is foundation for intergenerational well-being. According to my research, the “heavier” Black woman is carrying a disproportionate burden and the excess weight is the result of her energy force is bottlenecked and cannot diffuse back into the world. If the African American woman is compared to her peers in other nations, or to the physical stature of her grandmothers’ generations, this phenomena of getting larger every decade should be considered as pathological.
We acknowledge that all of God’s creations need to be appreciated for their talents and commitments. Yet, if we are to turn back the wave of chronic diseases that are overtaking the majority of adults in this country, we must concentrate our efforts on the Mind-Body-Spirit combination in total. A renewed awareness of the impact of malnutrition and environmental stress can help many of our women without the excess cost of health club memberships and diet factories.
March 1, 2012 at 5:34 am
Bigger is not better, and women who lead un-healthy life styles often have families that may live the same way.Meaning they often encourage their children to eat the way they do by cooking good tasting but bad foods. That also goes for the men in their live also who might suffer other issues like Prostate issues, Diabetes, and other forms of Cancer, I recently loss a lot of friends and family members due to bad eating foods and most were very much over weight. Some of these same people joke about me taking care of myself saying we all are going to die of something. All were ten or more years younger than me.