Thursday, October 22, 2009

Fitness

Our Health vs. Our Hair

Essence.com, which has been known to celebrate larger frames in an effort to encourage its readership -- mainly African American women, to tackle negative body image issues, is now bringing light to a very serious topic: obesity. On the one hand, it's great that we as black people tend to accept and appreciate ourselves and others at sizes that aren't typically embraced by society. Yet sometimes we are too accepting of sizes that may not necessarily be healthy. What does hair have to do with all this you ask? A lot actually.

For years, black women have put off exercise in an attempt to preserve their sexy. That is, few wish to get their hair messed up, especially since many of us have been known to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars getting it professionally styled. With obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other diet-related illnesses plaguing our community at an alarming rate, it's time we said, "Enough is enough!"

It's time for us to start taking charge of our health. Without it, we won't have anything to celebrate -- not even our hair. To get the scoop on how much our obsession with hair is impacting our health, read Our Health vs. Our Hair.

2 comments:

ColdDiva said...

The Story of my life!...Ok we all know that exercise is important...but tell that to my vanity! Nothing would piss me off more than to rightly wrap my hair up or pull it out in a tight ponytail just to sweat it out in a 45 minute aerobic workout session and look a busted mess! So instead I would skip a workout here saying...oh I want my hair to look cute for this date...or I can't workout today hangin out with the girls..I'll wait to next week on the day I get my hair done to workout!..Excuses, excuses, excuses! Needless to say most times vanity won!...But I digress...

Now that I am transitioning the focus has shifted and I now want an everyday sexy body instead of the everyday sexy hair. Plus with all the preexisting health issues that run thru the blood lines in my family I would be a childish fool not to become more responsible. I got my wake up call, I sincerely pray that my sisters do too!

Krista said...

This couldnt have come at a better tim. let me start by saying I LOVE YOUR BLOG...seriously...i was searching through you tube last night for natural styles for this very reason...how CRAZY IS THAT!? I asked my boyfriend would he date a fat girl with great hair or a nappy headed girl girl a rockin bod...he chose the latter and so would I...anywhoo's Unfoutuntaely for sistas this is the #1 if not top three reasons as to why we dont workout. I can't do it anymore. This revolution is now televised and I'm down. If I want to go straight i will simply have to get extensions.