I guess I should be glad that Columbia is doing this research. So that now we can say with the backing of academia what we’ve known and said all along and that James Baldwin put so simply, “it’s extremely expensive to be poor.” Columbia researchers suggested that in light of these findings public health policy “redouble its efforts on non-medical factors, such as high school graduation and poverty reduction programs.” Poverty reduction programs? What do you call that in a capitalist system? Oh yeah, socialism.

Though badly executed and strategically problematic, I don’t think Lincoln’s intentions were as wrong as they were misguided. To fully understand this issue you have to go deeper to the role of colleges and universities in black communities and the very real health crises experienced by marginalized communities.

First off, I think it’s safe to say that any strategy preventing otherwise eligible Black students from graduating college is a really bad strategy.

And while I can understand the concern for student’s survival, I can’t imagine that they would put their degrees in jeopardy. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have always served different ends than other institutions of higher learning. They exist, of course, primarily to educate students, black ones, but they emerged from a particular historical moment as the developing grounds for the race’s best and brightest. Deeper than a network, they’re family. Not that these schools are idyllic but it’s important to understand that a HBCU sees its connection to the community in a particular way. Simply put: A HBCU making this requirement of their student body is fundamentally different than Harvard making this request of their students. The relationship is more familial than strictly transactional, though this requirement is problematic in both contexts.

Then there’s the problem of the BMI. Though it’s used widely, many physicians can agree it’s not that useful for monitoring individual health. It’s a chart, a chart that tells you whether you’re fat or skinny, not healthy or unhealthy, not body fat percentage v. lean muscle mass. Fat or skinny.

Health cannot be a question of aesthetics, black people are dying in large numbers at all stages of life due to lack of adequate healthcare, access, and education. But this, I would argue, is not an issue that can be addressed piecemeal. Obesity itself is not the issue – instead the deep seeded, internalized psychological trauma and social depression that accompanies years of oppression and leads to harmful coping strategies remain our major obstacles to health and embodiment. These, compounded with the real lack of access to healthcare and healthy food that poor folks throughout this country face on the daily make truly healthy living a luxury of the rich.

It’s important and notable that Lincoln is taking the health of its community seriously – it is a serious and urgent issue. But we can’t be fooled by the Jenny Craig ads. Good health and low weight are not analogous terms. Black health, and the health of all oppressed communities, has to be addressed holistically – on the community and individual levels and on the psychological and physiological. I hope the next institution to take a look at this will come up with something more thoughtful and can bring us closer to actually addressing this issue.

I don’t even know if I should post this, but I guess the 365 Black campaign is working. Who needs greens and yams when we have…McDonalds?

Alan Fogel, a Psych Prof. at U of Utah does a lot of work on body sense and embodiment wrote an article in Psychology Today discussing the effects of this kind of alienation on how we eat.

“Either filling up with too much food or entering a state of semi-starvation create changes in the peripheral receptors of the homeostatic body systems that lead to particular states such as feeling soporific or energizing, depressive or anxious. Clinical case reports reveal that these states actually suppress the body sense, the underlying feelings of loneliness, loss, and trauma from which the food or starvation “high” becomes a palliative.”

Leads one to wonder particularly how historical trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder shared by communities can manifest itself in harmful and disembodied eating habits.

1. Accident Insurance – For one, weight lifting or strength training can decrease likelihood of accidents. Think about a fall. If you’re able to catch yourself, it’s less likely you’ll take the spill that’ll break your arm or worse.

2. Endurance – When you’re stronger you can go farther and faster. That simple.

3. Coordination and Balance – We have muscles for a reason. They help us function and move. When you train your muscles to be stronger you can do that better.

4. Bone density - Incredibly important in female bodied persons. As people get older their bones can lose density leading to osteoporosis. Post-menopausal levels of estrogen can quicken this process. It’s a bad thing. Weight training at all ages helps strengthen your bones and keeps you up and healthy longer.

5. Diabetes - Some studies connect weight lifting to a decrease in chances for diabetes. Poor communities and communities of color are significantly more susceptible to diabetes, namely because of the inaccessibility of good food resources and adequate healthcare.  Weight training can be one personal step in countering health issues associated with surviving poor in this country.

6. Embodiment -This should probably be number one as it can apply to all exercise and is really the most important. This is really about centering our consciousness in our bodies as opposed to solely in our minds, stress, and fears. This is a pretty difficult space to occupy, but sometimes the first step is doing something beneficial with our bodies that force us to be present, hence weight training. And as we start to change our relationship to our bodies, we have more energy to change our relationships to our lives and communities.

7. Revolution – Just saying, you never know what it’s going to take.

Also, I like this site for resources on weight lifting and nutrition that aren’t hyper-masculine, sexist or sizeist.

McDonald's can make you this happy?

Like most, I boast a certain critical, literate eye for advertising—or, at the very least, it’s hard to surprise me. It’s rare that I find myself shocked at the depths corporations will go to appeal to our lowest common denominators and our collective fears, and to co-opt our cultural aspirations. McDonald’s recently unveiled a promotional project, much more targeted and explicit than your run-of-the mill ad campaign. 365Black is McDonald’s push to further embed itself in the Black community (as if multiple franchises in every ’hood were not enough). With the trademarked phrase, “deeply rooted in the community,” McDonald’s has partnered with so-called Black cultural institutions, such as Essence, BET, and Vibe to create “job and scholarship opportunities” in exchange, one can assume, for deeper access to our demographic and a concerted effort to shift its image in our community. 365Black’s promotional pieces are peppered with several Black upper-level McDonald’s execs touting the corporation’s “diversity goals” and community initiatives. Targeted commercials have been designed especially for 365Black—one of which features young black professional types opting for McDonald’s McSkillet burritos over a home-cooked meal (though as of this posting, that ad isn’t up anymore).

Perhaps it should be noted here that heart disease remains the number-one killer of Black people. Or that Black communities disproportionately suffer from diabetes, kidney disease, hypertension, and the rest. Recent and emerging scholarship is beginning to connect the dots between fast food consumption in Black communities, the lack of healthy food options, and these discouraging health statistics. Community leaders and food activists emerging from social justice sectors are making strong inroads in addressing these conditions: from developing innovative mobile groceries and cultivating community gardens, to reinventing cultural foods with an eye for health and cost. A hopeful push out of this health mess is happening and no doubt has Mickey D’s feeling a slip on their hold over the Black community, a community they’ve likely taken somewhat for granted.

Racial and culturally focused advertising is not a new phenomenon. Proctor and Gamble launched their “My Black Is Beautiful” campaign in 2007 to, in their words, “celebrate the beauty of every African-American woman” and in my words, to promote cosmetics.  And though McDonald’s isn’t doing anything unheard of in a marketing sense, the health implications to the Black community are dangerous. Cultural and corporate lines are being intentionally blurred for deeper entrenchment, the least of the concerns the actual health of Black communities. Knowing that some will hype the funneling of funds into job and scholarship programs, it invites the question: Is it enough for our communities to receive a proverbial piece of the McDonald’s philanthropic pie at the expense of our collective and individual health? I think not.

This was originally posted on the blog for ‘Cook Food,’ vegan cookbook/manualfesto by Lisa Jervis. You can buy it here!