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A Facebook user made a simple post. It read: “Black women I’m sorry, but you need to lose weight.”
Amongst the hundreds of comments, the presumption before viewing them was pushback. What I read was surprising. Comment after comment black women were in agreement. Many shared how they’d “fallen off” or how life, menopause, or other distractions had gotten in the way, and were the cause of weight gain.
Per men, women don’t take accountability for their actions or the part they play in life misfortunes. Could the accountability taken by the commenters be a direct result of the perceived sincerity in the message? Maybe.
However, a man stating how women need to lose weight with sincerity or not is a problem.
Right message, wrong messenger
Dr. Stacy Sims, a exercise physiologist, nutrition scientist, author, and women’s health and fitness advocate, has studied how women should exercise and eat for optimal health. She has stated that most women are exercising and dieting like men, due to limited research and studies performed on the female body.
“Historically, when you think about who developed science and research, women were pushed out right at the start. No one really questioned the lack of women being studied. They just assumed women were smaller versions of men, so whatever works for men works for women,” she said during an interview with CNN.
What this means, is women are subjected to social media pages, personal/fitness trainers, and peer reviewed research based off the male anatomy, that does not benefit women in any fitness, performance, or health endeavors.
Blanketed statements of “need to lose weight” just don’t cut it. Women, black women in particular, need and deserve scientifically proven clinical research based specifically for black women.
A woman’s work is never done
The non profit Gender Equity Policy Institute, examined what is known as “the free time gender gap”. This gap measures how much free time is available to women than men regarding childcare and household chores. A 2022 American Time Use Survey found women spend significantly more time than men on child rearing, and household chores like cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. The result of women doing more household and child care work, leaves women with having 13% less free time than men, on average. Across the board, women married or not, childfree or not, young or not, are still performing twice to three times more childcare/household work in comparison to men.
How and where are women supposed to find the time and energy to exercise, rest, or indulge in other leisure activities for optimal health?
The need for black women to lose weight goes deeper than a social media post. Our communities at large lack access to quality healthcare, food, information, and resources for a better quality of life. We’re in this together. So why target black women?
Until black men consider the lack of clinical research on black women, genetics, hormones, work, child birth/care and household chores, they should be more understanding of the mental and physical load black women carry, before commenting on weight.