Does Research on Physical Activity Not Include Black Women?

The recent protests against systematic racism in the U.S. made me ponder if women’s fitness embeds similar racism. Do we talk about White women’s physical activity participation as if they would represent all active women? For example, in my previous post, I introduced research by Kerry McGannon, Jenny McMahon, and Christine Consalves (2017) who interviewed seven recreational distance-runner mothers about the empowerment they found in their physical activity pursuit. These women were all White and middle-class. While running continues to be popular among American women—according to Running USA, a majority of road racers (59%) in 2017 were women—does it empower only White women? What about other popular fitness activities?

In her research, Alicia Smith-Tran (2020) found that Black¹ women are also looking for spaces to run, but need to find other runners with a similar identity to feel comfortable. Smith-Tran’s study focuses on one such space: Black Girls Run! (BGR), a recreational running organization specifically for Black women. Similar to Another Mother Runner (AMR) that originated from a website launched by two avid distance-running mothers (McGannon & al., 2017), BGR began when two women, Toni Carey and Ashley Hicks-Rocha, started a blog to encourage African-American women to run. Their aim was to “tackle the growing obesity epidemic in the African-American community” (Smith-Tran) and thus make fitness and healthy living the main message of BGR.

Similar to AMR, BGR also operates through social media with Facebook as its core. Since its 2009 start in Atlanta, the organization has grown to more than 250,000 members belonging to 72 chapters throughout the country (Smith-Tran, 2020). Smith-Tran used a qualitative research method called in-depth life story interviews to talk to six middle-class Black women who were recreational runners with BGR.

In this study, BGR emerged as a space where women runners could deal with stress and the distinctive challenges middle-class Black Americans face “as being one of the ‘only ones’ in middle-class professional and leisure space." Running, Smith-Tran found, provided a refuge from the everyday experience of “being noticeably non-White." Like many other contexts in their lives, the Black women runners found recreational running a White-dominated space whereas BGR offered a specific site where they could be active with women who looked like them.

Smith-Tran provides stories from Kourtney (a government employee), Kate (a middle school teacher), and Christina (a personal trainer) as examples of the empowerment the runners felt in BGR. All three worked in predominantly White workplaces. While Kate ran cross-country already in college, all three had started to run now to lose or maintain healthy weight. After several years of running, they also actively raced. Kourtney explained how empowering it was to find other Black women runners:

“In the past, you would do a race and you wouldn’t see anybody that looked like you, seriously, and in Lewisville, when I did a race there that was the first time I’d seen so many Black people running. I’m like, ‘Oh my god. Where are you guys at normally?’”

Kate also talked about the stereotype of thin women distance runners and the confidence she gained when seeing multiple body types in races attended by the BGR runners. Kate had struggled with anorexia in college, as she, often the only person of color on her teams and at competitions, felt pressure to fit among the thin runners. In BGR, Kate saw more diverse women and began to feel better about her own body. She reflected:

“Our bodies are built different. We’re never supposed to be a size 2. To be honest, most people shouldn’t be a size 2. I didn’t realize that body image was so absorbed around my sport until I got to college. I’ve struggled with it, because now that I am back competing [in marathons] and I see some of my best friends [from college] and I’m like, 'Wow. I need to be like them,' but I know that you really don’t need to be like them. You need to be like you, whatever that means. But the running community, I mean they’re the thin, tiny, petite people. But when Black Girls Run! shows up and I’m around them I’m like, 'Oh, sweet,' you know, and you feel really good about yourself because we have women that are a size 24, and we have women that are a size 4, and that’s pretty awesome.”

While Christina, a personal trainer, was already active, she was often surrounded by White women at the gym where she worked. In her BGR group she could run the way that suited her fitness level:

“I met with BGR on a Saturday morning and I loved it because it was just like there were other familiar faces that I could relate to and they were walk-running and they were running, and they were walking…the spectrum was so big and I didn’t feel like I was holding anybody back and I didn’t feel like I was being held back by anybody.”

These personal feelings of empowerment were closely connected to the community that BGR cultivated among its members. Mia (a government official), for example, found deep social relationships with other BGR runners: “So I enjoy the group. Usually when I go, I actually talk more than I run because I’m too busy talking and that’s okay. It’s just nice to see people of color moving, and it’s nice to not be the only person.”

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Through BGR, Mia has also become aware of other running groups such as National Black Marathoners, Black Runners’ Connection, Black Greek Running Nation, Black Girls Rock 50 States, and International Association of Black Triathletes that service specifically a Black membership. The BGR social media, specifically, helped her to meet many new running friends: “Without social media, I never would’ve met these folks, ’cause they’re all over the country.”

Shari (a municipal judge) also connected with other passionate runners like herself through BGR. After seven years of running, she is now a self-confessed “race addict:”

“Now, I have done tons of races. I’ve done a full marathon. I’ve done six half marathons. I’ll be doing my seventh in September…We have so much fun at the races. It’s not just about running. It’s about the camaraderie.”

BGR, thus, was not only about running, but became central to these women’s social lives in a context where they could connect to other Black women.

The participants in the study run as a part of their healthy lifestyle, but also to challenge dominant narratives about Black women and their bodies. Tyra, (a yoga instructor), explained:

"For me it was important to be around other women of color because of those same stories— that we don’t exercise. We don’t swim. It’s, you know, because I know we tend to be caretakers and we put ourselves last. So to be around women who wanted to kind of break out of that kind of trend or that legacy that we tend to inherit from our mothers was really important for me.”

Christina added: “I know our history as Black women. We don’t tend to do enough for our bodies. We have diabetes and that heart disease and all that stuff that follows from just poor eating and lack of activity…but if we were to start turning those tables, it would be awesome, and we can, and that’s the main thing that I love about BGR."

BGR empowered these women to run with a community that fostered body positivity distinctive for active Black women. Is this possible in any other physical activity setting?

In Smith-Tran’s (2020) study, yoga instructor Tyra often found herself as the only Black woman in her yoga classes and yoga, similar to distance running, has often been identified as White women’s activity. Smith and Atencio (2017), for example, reported that 84.2% of American yoga participants were women and 89.2% identified as White. In her account, however, Marcelle M. Haddix (2016) talked about her embodied connection to yoga as a middle-class Black woman.

Similar to the BGR runners, Haddix described often being "the only one" both in her workplace as a university professor and her yoga practice space. Yoga, nevertheless, helped her to navigate the stress of getting through the promotion process to become a tenured professor. She pondered how other Black women may find empowerment and stress relief through yoga.

Tired of being "the only one," Haddix qualified as a yoga instructor. Inspired by her Black womanist and feminist lens, she created her own class to employ a culturally relevant and community-based teaching style. She describes her yoga brand, "ZenG: Everyday Living Well, Gangsta Style" as “a yoga lifestyle that is unapologetic and intentional about valuing the soulful and spiritual flavor of communities of color." To bring her free or low-cost yoga classes to her local community, Haddix reached out to potential participants through Facebook.

Haddix’s yoga class caters specifically to Black women’s bodies by its music selection (e.g., the soulful music of Black women), use of space, the flow of asanas, and assigning time for breathing and meditation. She physically touches and assists each person in her class to provide personal attention to participants. She also ends each class by “invoking the words of black women writers, poets, and activists to privilege the knowledge production of black women and to establish ancestral connections across generations of women of color.”

Haddix summarized that her goal is “to bring yoga to more communities of color and to challenge the misrepresentation of people of color and yoga, healthy living, and even healthy eating." Her Black feminist yoga pedagogy, thus, is also political: it assumes that “black women’s bodies and lives exist, matter, and belong in yoga classes and as yoga teachers."

Smith-Tran (2020) and Haddix (2016) demonstrate that African-American women are looking for safe spaces to be physically fit. As running and yoga are both typically deemed as White women’s activities, the African-American women have created their own communities of empowerment. The community where these women could be active with others with a similar identity was central to their positive experiences of physical activity. Considering these two examples of thriving fitness communities, it is important to give more voice and visibility to active African-American women and their efforts to bring healthy, active living to their communities.

Note 1: I use ‘Black’ as opposed to African-American when the authors I cite refer to ‘Black,’ ‘black,’ or Black women.