Donne di colore più pesante e più felici con i loro corpi di donne bianche, scrutinio trova

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, uno!” 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, e sudore scurisce la cintura dei pantaloni neri a muro che si aggrappano alla uber-rotondità del suo fondo. "Lotta per il tuo sexy!"Lei comanda la sua classe.

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Nessuno in questo campo di addestramento funziona a essere modello sottile. E quasi per una persona, rifiutano l'idea che dovrebbero, o che tale standard è anche carino. O realistico. O mentalmente sano. Questo è particolarmente vero per Gibson, 41, che è stato un istruttore di fitness per 12 anni, anche se non necessariamente conoscerlo, cercando in lei.

Come molte donne nere, Gibson descrive il suo 5-foot-4, taglia 14-plus fisico come "di spessore,"E si considera ultra-femminile - non importa ciò che la cultura dominante ha da dire in proposito.

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. Sebbene 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.

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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, dicono. 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, che il pensiero ha reso le donne nere più felici con i loro corpi di donne bianche in molti modi. E per certi versi, li è messo sul pendio scivoloso verso più alti tassi di obesità.

Fonte: Washington Post