What are your demons?
What's keeping the weight on?
Why did you gain the weight to begin with?
Until you can answer those three questions I doubt seriously you will be able to keep the weight off even if you manage to lose it. Black women are still much more overweight than other groups of women in this country, even when you control for education and socio-economic status.
Since there are not a lot of studies that look at Black women and their weight issues, there isn't a lot of hard evidence as to the why we are so overweight, especially for college educated Black women.
There are all the normal answers:
- Soul Food
- Black men
- Lousy food options in Black neighborhoods
- Poverty
- Hair
I don't think any of those answers get at the heart of the matter however. I suspect (and it's just my opinion) many Black women are using food to substitute for any number of things in they feel is missing in their lives: love, sex, money, companionship, friendship, etc. And that as Black folks (in general) we use food as a way to show and express love...so the "Baby are you hungry," that you here when you venture to your grandma's (or any older Black woman's house) house is her way of saying, "I love you so let me feed you."
But goodness, we're "loving" ourselves into an early grave. Black women are more likely to die or suffer from just about everything from cancer to high blood pressure to diabetes, then any other group of women in the country. I keep writing about it, but I really feel this is something we have to get under control...TODAY...not tomorrow, not next month or next year but today.
So once you've answered the questions...what can you do to start making the necessary changes to get your health in order?
Today is a new day. So what are you waiting for?
1 comments:
I'm an emotional eater...all of those other excuses don't apply to me. I have learned to control that through reconizing when I'm eating because I'm truly hungry or if its because of an emotion, and it works.
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