That being said, I was pretty disappointed by the way the study was manipulated… to the point that it was being championed as “the nail in the coffin” for “relaxers and the harm they cause and perpetuate in society.” The ultimate turnoff, for me, was the number of people who said “No, I don’t think weight or diet plays a part in fibroids because I’m thin and I have/had them.” At that point, I had to step back*. I step back from a lot of studies, just because they’re not only inconclusive, but that nasty game of “Telephone” turns things into thangs and then sensationalism turns it into big giant huge inavoidable thangs. I don’t really like that.

Danielle Lee, The Urban Scientist from Scientific American, wrote an amazing post about how the story spread like wildfire, the “journalistic flaws” and laziness shown in websites with large audiences, and the need for more journalistic credibility in general when reporting science to the Black community.

I have a bad habit, that I’m trying to break, of quoting damn-near entire articles (but sometimes, they’re sooooooo good!), but I’m trying to stop that. That being said, here are a few excerpts from Danielle’s post that I think are important… and also relate a lot to me, here:

It seems the news story out of Houston is what got all of this started; but it was the sharing of the story on the two online magazines that helped it reach a nationwide audience.  However, all three major sources, Fox News, Clutch Magazine, and Madame Noire reported inaccurate information about the study.  They conflated the methods and results of two separate studies: one study by Wise et al. studied hair relaxer use and possible risk of uterine fibroids, another study by James-Todd et al. studied black hair care products and early onset of puberty.  Both studies focused on African-American women. However, it does not appear that the two lines of research were connected nor were the two research teams collaborating.   This is important, because it signals a lack of due diligence on the part of the journalists and editors/producers at each of this organizations.

At this point I could more-or-less determine if subsequent coverage was derived from the Fox News coverage or the Clutch/Madame Noire coverage.  In fact, as I was reading blog posts and articles, I started to notice the same phrases and repeats of mistakes.  At first I thought, perhaps people were re-stating phrases from a press release. However, the Boston University Public Relations website reveals no evidence of a press release of the Wise et. al research.

It was beginning to look like a lot of copying and pasting with no one acknowledging the original source(s).

The widely referenced New Study Links Relaxers To Fibroids at BlackDoctor.org on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, looked to be a nearly perfect scraping of the Madame Noire piece.  The only changes were omitting the name of the beautician mentioned in the original piece and the addition of Fibroid Facts at the end.

Your Black World.net – a news aggregating blog site relayed the BlackDoctor.org piece, page 1 word-for word on February 22, 2012. The article even stops mid-sentence: Study Links Hair Relaxers To Fibroid Tumors and Early Puberty In African American Females.

That same day, The Intersection of Madness & Reality author published: STUDY: Hair Relaxers Linked to Fibroids in African American Women. This post linked back to the BlackDoctor.org piece and the author tells us that he first heard of the perms linked to fibroids story on the Tom Joyner Morning Show a week before.  This is the first time anyone references a national radio program spreading this story and provides a rough idea of when it was shared. The Tom Joyner Morning Show is affiliated with Black America Web.com and they posted their own article on Friday, February 24, 2012. Study Finds Link Between Tumors and Perms.  I know that Tom Joyner is based out of Texas and I suspect he may have gotten wind of the FOX news story; the piece at the webiste links back to the Fox Houston news coverage.  But what’s especially alarming about this report is how poorly they covered this new item.

But now an even more disturbing report has entered the scene via a study conducted by Boston University, which proves that relaxers used to straighten black hair have a proven link to the fibrous tumors that disproportionately affect black women.

The research team proved nothing and they make no such claim.  This was bad reporting or an egregious error on the part of the writer at this site.  I recognize the very strong influence of syndicated radio programs for sharing important news with very large audiences.  Programs like the Tom Joyner Morning Show and the Michael Baisden Show draw huge urban markets and are powerful media brokers.  However, I’ve also been very disappointed with them for spreading misinformation about science and health news specifically.

African-Americans seem to be one of the most disconnected audiences from science, especially if you use the amount of science-related coverage in black media outlets as a gauge.  To me, it’s no real surprise that we are so under-served and that the gaps in achievement in science, as well as the participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) careers are so great.  Sadly, as much our leaders exclaim the importance of education, however, our collective exercise of scientific literacy has been lacking.  This is one such instance.

Emphasis is hers, but dang. She goes on:

There were many journalistic flaws:

1. A majority of the pieces, at news sites and at blogs were exact duplicates of each other.  Visit each of the links provided or scroll through the screen shots of the websites, here.

Black women, perms and fibroids science news coverage

View more presentations from Danielle Lee. (enlarge to read)

2. There was little or no research. Who investigated this story? It seems quite obvious to me that no one contacted the researchers, the journals, or the press offices from either of the institutions mentioned.  There were no quotes or explanations of the study(ies) in the short write-ups.  Moreover, mashing the two research studies together was a major oversight.

It was also clear that no one bothered to read the original research articles.   Conclusions were poorly explained and over-simplified results were shared.  I know this is a sore spot that comes up often between scientists and journalists.  Scientists routinely complain of journalists sensationalizing the results or getting the science wrong.  But this infraction was worse.  It was so apparent that this wasn’t a journalist innocently misunderstanding complex science.  No, this was like a game of telephone gone badly – and no one was even on the telephone.  One source shared the story and one-by-one additional (online) media programs picked up the story and added a little literary flare – framing the issue as a Natural Hair vs. Chemical Hair discussion – to draw in black female readers; and the fire spread.

And, finally, bring it on home, girl:

But my big take home message is that Black Media outlets have got to do better.  This recent news coverage about chemical relaxers and uterine fibroids in African-American women presents a learning opportunity to all of us – producers and consumers of news.  It time for media producers and distributors to provide authentic science journalism in our news outlets.  It’s time consumers – TV, radio, print, and online – to demand more high quality informative news, not just shock and awe coverage.  Our health is serious business and not the place to provide lazy copy, pasted, and unconfirmed news bits.

It is past time for our old guard and new guard media organizations to create meaningful, relevant news content related to health, environment, technology, and education. Black Media it’s time for you host professional science journalists in your organizations.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this didn’t apply to me, as well. Not in a “Ohhh, you’re creating clusterf– uhhh, misunderstandings among people!” kind of way, but in a “This is a polite reminder that even science reporting requires due diligence and balance” kind of way. The only time I get studies without journalistic fudging attached is when one of you lovely people sends it directly to me, and even then I don’t report it – I just file it away in my mental rolodex and save it to compare against my own experiences, future studies that come up or other reporting on it. There are very few things that I pounce on immediately. This is why.

I’m also kind of blown away by how she put a lot of websites on blast for lazy or inaccurate reporting. I just… it’s a lot to think about as someone who writes about science-related topics and will, assuredly, be reading a lot of these kinds of studies on my own in terms of being kept up to date on my new field. It gives me insight into what counts as respectable reporting on studies, which is important to me because, while I do care a lot about helping people further their desires to live healthier lives, I have no interest in being manipulative to do it.

I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit that I noticed how some of the same outlets I’d expect to be critical of a woman having natural hair seemed to be some of the ones who jumped on “reporting” on this the fastest.

That being said, I’d like to know how you guys processed what happened in this situation. What were you thinking as this unfolded? And, furthermore, to the scientists in the crowd, what advice do you have for someone like me who writes about studies often but doesn’t want to do what was, apparently, done here? Though I don’t believe it’s Danielle’s responsibility to teach us, I’d soooo love it if she wrote a “guide to writing and reporting on scientific research,” because as little reporting as is done on this stuff in the Black community, it’s important that we do everything we can to get as much of it right as possible.

*If you’re wondering, I’m generally more inclined to believe that diet – particularly the hormones present in lots of animal meat and some dairy products – plays a huge part in the prevalence of fibroids, and the outright dismissal of that sounded more like a witch hunt to blame relaxers for the downfall of Black civilization. There are legitimate reasons for giving up relaxers. Manipulating science is unnecessary. That’s why I stepped back.

Black Women, Relaxers, The Uterine Fibroids Study, Early Puberty & Journalistic Credibility is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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3. Update: “Why Black Women Are Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?”

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What I AM interested in is what the deciding factor is in the decision between choosing perfect hair and working toward a perfect body. Seriously. I asked my male friends about this, and each one said to me something to the effect of, “I’d rather my girl have a great body and a jacked up head, than beautifully straight hair and a jacked up body.” Besides, there’s some kind of debate about the type of men that a natural-haired sista will attract, anyhow.

Make no mistake about it – I’m NOT natural. In fact, I’ve done my own relaxers since I was a sophomore in high school, and keep my hair healthy all by my lonesome. It is thick, 2-3 inches away from my bra strap, and well… let’s just say that to the average person, I STILL look like I’m natural. However… because I know what my head would look like otherwise, I’m grateful for the relaxer. I go from looking like a lion to a lamb – still a little wooly but much better than the alternative – and that has nothing to do with any external factors. It’s just not what I prefer to sleep on, comb through, or see in a mirror.

Having admitted my own plight with my hair, I will tell you.. I’m not willing to let something as meaningless as hair get in the way of my goals for my personal health. I won’t act like it’s easy for every woman to make that kind of statement. I can’t imagine what women in more corporate settings go through, especially since once upon a time.. it was considered acceptable to call “afrocentric” hair a “corporate don’t.” I work for myself, so I set my own rules. Being beholden to the beauty standards of someone that might not understand the “limitations” of your culture is stressful to say the least. However, it simply cannot serve as an excuse for not taking care of ourselves. Maybe, in the future, I can find links for attractive hairstyles that are manageable and conducive to a good workout regimen.

I won’t lie.. I need ‘em too. I wear my hair in either two pixie braids or a giant afro puff all day. LOL.

All of that typing was a pre-cursor to this video, about women of color and how we allow our hair to get in the way of our health and well-being. The newscaster, Robin Robinson of Fox Chicago, made a pretty daring move in going against what her viewers are used to and wearing a style that they may not be accustomed to seeing. I think that’s pretty bold, and although I kind of snickered at her “benefits of wearing ethnic hairstyles – thank goodness there is one” line (because even though I know it’s received poorly, I felt her pain), I hope she chooses to stick with it.

What are your thoughts? Do tell!

Great Hair or Great Body? Straight Hair and Working Out is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. ‘Cause Your Good Hair Is More Important Than Your Health?
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Post tags: Black Hair, blackness, exercise and relaxers

To me, that’s… funny.

For a number of reasons.

Make no mistake about it, I’ve said on here that I wear relaxed tresses. My own hair is a third of the way down my back, extremely thick, and I usually toss it up in a ponytail. I used to wear sew-ins, because they allowed me to do some insane things to my hair, still look good, and not manage to burn all of my hair off. For me, as well as a number of women, relaxing our hair is a manageability issue.

And, really.. I’ve got to admit: it’s absolutely a manageability issue for me because although I relax regularly, I still have the luxury of being able to rock my ‘fro. Quite frankly, I’m not interested in flat ironing my hair every day. Not in the least.

However, the conversation that this movie is forcing us to have involves the Black standard of female beauty. IS there a premium placed on women with straight hair? Is this a healthy concept for us? By healthy, I don’t mean health-wise, but more so in terms of what it says to us about ourselves? Don’t worry, this isn’t about to turn into a rant of natural vs relaxed.

I can’t help but wonder, though. What is out there that is so powerful, it can convince our girlfriends to spend a whole DAY in the salon to get their hair styled, but it’s too rough to spend a half hour a day walking? Where is the message that tells us we must spend THOUSANDS of dollars each year caring for our hair, sacrificing entire days in beauty salons, and why isn’t the message of being more physically fit getting through? Can someone measure the strength of THAT message for me?

What is it? I mean, if I look at the TV, the same images of women with straight, shiny, silky hair also contain images of women with stick thin figures and single-digit dress sizes. If I look at a magazine ad of a woman with gorgeous straight hair with long curls, she’s more often than not going to be rail thin. I’m not saying that “rail thin” is the way to be by ANY means, but I’m hoping to illustrate a point here. If the small figures are found in the same places we find the images of women with straight hair… why isn’t the message convincing Black women to put forth a gang of effort into losing weight getting through?

Now, I can’t identify or verify these numbers, but check this out:

Unfortunately, 46% of African American men and 57% of African American women are sedentary, with no time scheduled for exercise. – Lottie’s Health N Wellness

No time scheduled for exercise, but all the time in the world for the almighty touch-up?

Listen, I’m not railing against women who DO hit the salon at 6AM waiting to make sure they’re out by 2PM. I’m railing against women who can get up at 6AM for a hair appointment, while loudly complaining about having no time for the gym. A half hour a day walking helped me lose 18lbs in one month. Maybe we overestimate what it takes to actually invest in our personal health. Maybe because we get so few tidbits of advice on how to care for our physical selves, we’ve let commercials and infomercials and trainers with something to sell educate us improperly. Maybe we’ve been led to believe that it requires more than we can afford in time as well as money. Maybe, baby.

I think it’s funny that the movie could very well NOT address fitness in the slightest. Is it because the topic is wholly uncomfortable for at least 79% of us to talk about? Is it too much to think about why we find such comfort in seeing heavier set women in our community? Before someone tries to take offense, don’t take my words as saying there is something offensive to society’s sensibilities by having overweight women around. I’m saying that there’s something that makes it acceptable for us to live an unhealthy lifestyle, but would make us sacrifice a whole day (in some cases, a whole weekend) for different hair.

What is it going to take for us to re-educate and enlighten ourselves? Will it take our men to start openly and loudly shunning overweight women, as opposed to still giving us attention? Is that what it will boil down to, to get us to focus equal-if-not-more attention on our physical health? What are your thoughts?

‘Cause Your Good Hair Is More Important Than Your Health? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Open Thread: What Do YOU Do With Your Hair?
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Post tags: Black Hair, blackness, exercise and relaxers

The description reads, “Clips from the upcoming documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color—particularly dark skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture.”

Welp. Hope you’ve got a tissue. You just might need it.

Before we do this, I’d like to make a few things clear.

Proclaiming “It’s 2011! Skin color doesn’t matter any more!” doesn’t work around here. The reality is that anyone who spends any amount of time on a social network – the places where people are most able to share what’s on their mind without the threat of immediate repercussion in their daily lives – will be able to tell you that at LEAST once a day collectives of people are discussing “a skin-color issue.”

I do acknowledge that skin color issues go both ways. It just so happens that today, the topic is a movie that focuses on, well, Dark Girls. I’d love to see and hear stories of how skin color issues have affected us all, but one person’s story doesn’t invalidate another’s.

Lastly, I’d love to use this as a case study to help us understand how we identify ourselves, and what we pass on to our daughters.

Like, for instance. The girl whose mother said “…and could you just think of if she had any lightness to her skin? She’d be beautiful!” I actually became teary eyed at that moment. As a mother who is now very aware of what messages I pass on to my daughter, and as the sole arbiter of who she becomes as a person right now… I cannot imagine her being “too dark” as a “negative point” against her when I think of all the things that make her who she is.

One of the pleasures of attending an historically Black university is that you get the opportunity to take very culture-specific courses. One of those, for me, was a psychology course that centered around issues that faced Black America and how we can combat them. It was in this course that I learned about Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who are both well-known for their “Doll Studies” which are what’s mimicked in the first few moments of this video.

You have to wonder where our little girls get these messages from? That they’re worth less – not necessarily worthless – than their peers because their skin is darker. I’ve written about this before – the more we highlight and focus on perceived flaws in our little girls, the more likely they are to do things that we don’t attribute to girls who have high self-esteem… and that could be weight or skin color. The little girl who answered those questions in that video couldn’t have been older than a second grader (I might have a kid, but I’m terrible at guessing their ages.) and had already decided that a child who looks the most like her is the dumber, uglier child. What happened to thinking you are the hottest potato in the pan?

(“Hottest potato in the pan?” Yes. I’m country. I know already.)

What scares me the most about this, as a Mom, is that I don’t know what it is that passes on these images to children – is it something as inconspicuous as seeing only white children in TV shows, or is it actually hearing someone say “nobody wants your dark ass anyway?” – so I don’t know how to fight it. I don’t know how to combat it. And can we ever? Even if your home is safe for the development of a young Black girl’s psyche, who’s to say that your sister is as enlightened as you? Your Mother? Your cousins? The babysitter? The other kids on the yard? If it’s coming from all angles, how many swords do you need?

I mean, how much pain do you have to endure in your childhood before you start to say things like “I don’t want my child to look like me?” How does that change how you approach and view relationships? How many women do we know who specifically seek out men who “look a certain way” so that the possibility of diluting the skin color of the child is greater? How does that mentality feed into the idea that “lighter skin” is a hotter commodity and more wanted than, well, Dark Skin? I mean, I think of a fella I dated once – fair skin, green eyes – who swore up and down that I was only interested in having his baby, since “that’s how all the others were.” Poking holes in condoms, lying about birth control… needless to say, that was too much for me.

And really, for those of us who were teased (or watched someone be teased) as children for being overweight, what do we do? We go into hyperdrive trying to prevent our little girls from being overweight. What messages do we pass on to them about themselves when we do that? When we overcompensate in our parenting, and our little girls turn into that which we didn’t “want,” how do we treat them then? Do we become resentful and start trying to have another child, preferably without the perceived “defect,” or do we just beat it into our little girls’ heads that they “have a flaw they need to work hard to overcome?” Isn’t that just passing down the same body image issues we have?

Who perpetuates this? I mean, if you listen closely enough, it comes from three different angles: one woman says “I’m used to hearing ["I'm so glad she didn't come out dark!"] from other races,” a man says “Dark skinned women look funny beside me, so I’d rather not date a dark skinned woman,” and – obviously – our media, which is run by an often nameless, faceless collective that is, ostensibly, not-black. (At this point, considering how ingrained this is in our society, I don’t know whether or not it’d matter whether or not media was all-Black.)

The point about sexuality is also troubling to me, because when we try to decouple issues that compel women to make questionable decisions when it comes to relationships. You can deny it, but the point will always be there. It is a fact that transcends relationships, but is especially visible there: individuals who believe that they have less to offer than their peers will accept a lesser role and be happy with that, simply because they don’t think they’re worthy of any role at all.

Calling a woman “beautiful, exotic” behind closed doors, basically telling her everything she wants to hear, getting what you want from her, and then leaving? It’s using a woman. It’s exploiting her weaknesses. And if everyone around her values her as little as she does, there’s no one around her capable of building up her self-worth, because they don’t think she’s worth much, either. There’s no one around able to support her in her most vulnerable point – the point where she feels like she has nothing to offer and is worthy of merely meaningless sex (unless, of course, she can tell herself that this is exactly what she wants and is honest with herself about it.)

“It doesn’t look clean, I feel like… like, nasty, almost… When you roll out of bed, and your hair is like, nappy, it’s the most disgusting, unclean thing…”

Oh, word?

My bad.

I don’t care to do the natural-vs-relaxed thing on my blog. However… this makes me sad, especially from a girl so… young. And while I’m almost certain that there’s some grown woman out there like “Well, I agree with her. It just looks unclean,” I’m going to go out on a limb and say “That… makes me sad, too.” And we can both be okay with that.

I’m in the interest of shining a light on the things that prevent us from being who we are, who we want to be… and most of us want to be lovers, dreamers and little green frogs–er, I mean, worthy of… the same things as everyone else. We want the space to be vulnerable. To be emotional without being deemed angry. To be loved without subtext. To be adored and admired. To be exoticized without malicious intent – as in, it’s okay to love my dark skin and my deep eyes, but do you also seek to love the other things that make me who I am? These stigmas keep us from getting to that space. How do we fight them?

Body Image, Self-Worth & Sexuality: Dark Skin, A New Documentary is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 42 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blackness, Body Image, dark skin, light skin, relationships, sex, skin color

Not a single thing.

I’m serious – I’m so low-maintenance when it comes to my hair that it’s a wonder that I still have any. And while I probably could still answer all the hair questions, the fact remains that every person’s hair is different. What works for one won’t work for another; what works for my lifestyle might not work for yours; what my “decency regulations” require might be different from yours… and, quite frankly, I’m a hippie. I straightened my hair for a while, and now I’m kind of just enjoying my Angela Davis style.

For workouts, I braid my hair into two pixie braids a la Pippi Longstocking, and go to work. I rinse my hair out with water and coconut oil, then I braid it back up unless I’m going right into my curls or my ‘fro. I don’t use heat on my hair, just a soft towel. I rinse it maybe every other day, and don’t use shampoo very often at all.

See that? Low maintenance. Those of you with high-fangled hair routines are probably wagging your fingers at me right now… I’m sorry. I hope you still e-love me.

That being said, what’s going on with YOUR head? Are you relaxed? Natural? How are you caring for YOUR hair during and after your workouts? What are you using on it? Let’s hear it!

Open Thread: What Do YOU Do With Your Hair? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: black hair and working out, hair, hair and fitness, hairstyles

Me, as a toddler... not a strand out of place.

My mother wasn’t having it, though. Born in the era of straightening combs on the stove, she was good for waking me up at the crack of dawn and burning the hell out of me trying to straighten my hair. I don’t even think I knew what my hair looked like without a handful of grease and a whole morning’s worth of heat in it… because we started doing this routine when I was approximately 4 years of age.

Say what you will about that – especially since it was a couple of decades ago – but I grew up believing that I was supposed to have straight hair, and this suffering was how I was supposed to get it. If ever my kitchen (you know what the kitchen is) was even remotely curly, my Mom was quick on the draw. “Um, what’s goin’ on with your natural? Come here, let me hit those naps real quick.” I never thought twice about it. That was Mom, for crying out loud. I pretty much worshipped the ground she walked on – always well dressed, properly put together, never a hair out of place – surely, she knew what she was talkin’ about.

I, much like most of the little Black girls in my area, grew up coveting straight hair.  Considering how difficult this was to maintain for girls like me with the most all-the-way-live-kinks and coils, this also made us resent anything that got in the way of us ruining that straight hair. Gym class was almost always indoors, and forget about getting us in any kind of swimming pool.

Eventually, all that hair pressing left my hair pretty lifeless. Horribly split ends, breaking off like nobody’s business.. I actually remember people clowning me about it. I didn’t really know any better. I just knew I needed to have straight hair, and I was succumbing to what I needed in order to get it.

It got worse once I entered high school. After having moved to my new neighborhood where all the hair was not only straight, but blond and long.. my mother and I dug all throughout the city to find a hairdresser who could help me at least accomplish the long and straight part. As a high schooler, I was in the salon weekly, spending $40 for a wash/rinse/press… and $80 once a month for my relaxer. Two hundred dollars a month to acquire this look that I had coveted since I was four years old.

Needless to say, I grew up prioritizing an inordinate amount of time strictly to straight hair. Never knew (or considered) why I did, why I needed to… never asked any questions. Just fell in line.

Hindsight is most certainly 20/20, though.

College-aged me... approximately 250lbs.

I started gaining weight somewhere around the fourth grade. I can’t help but wonder why no one was equally “quick on the draw” checking me about my weight instead of my hair. I wonder why I never prioritized an “inordinate amount of time strictly to” my physical and emotional fitness instead of… hair. I wonder why a more fit physique wasn’t “coveted” the same way straight hair was coveted. It just seemed like I wanted those things that seemed easiest to acquire – just spend your morning getting burned by the stove and you, too, can have straight hair just like “the rest of society.”I guess “being fit and healthy” wasn’t that easy to achieve.

When you grow up putting such a high priority on hair, it means that at some point, you start cutting things out to protect that priority. I can recall taking an F for a semester of PE because I wasn’t getting in any pool. (After an uber expensive hair treatment? No thanks.) I can recall walking the “one mile speed test” because I didn’t want to sweat… and I was out there for almost 18 minutes to do it. In college, I took a geography class that required not only hiking but kayaking… and I gave my professor hell the entire time, complaining that I “was going to have to take out a student loan to keep up my hair if he was going to have us out with Mother Nature every other darn day.” I dealt with it in order to get my “A,” but that was about it.

When I first started working out – as in, complete newbie status – I can remember stopping on the elliptical the moment I felt liquid on my forehead. I was literally allergic to sweat. It wasn’t until one night I happened to be at the gym the same time as The Cleaner was on, accidentally stayed on the elliptical the entire episode, jumped on the scale and saw that I lost a pound of water weight that I literally said “Man, f– this hair.” That was the end of that for me. Every night, I was wearing my sweaty shirt as a badge of honor.“Yes, that’s right, I broke it dowwwwwwwwwn on that there machine! I’m that chick!” I’ve been over it, since.

I don't remember even taking this picture, which means there might've been wine involved.

I listen to conversations that other women have about their hair, and I always keep quiet… though more often than not, I’m the one they want to hear from. Not because I’m anybody special, but because the assumption is that this is a hurdle I’ve encountered before. I don’t really have any popular or easy answers for them, which is why I usually keep quiet. I could say, “Why is straight hair such a big deal to y’all, anyway?” but that’d only be met with laughter and “Um, anyways…” and I’d rather not get extra indignant and say “What if you swapped your hair with your body in your list of priorities? This wouldn’t even be an issue then, would it? You’d be doing what you gotta do to make your hair work without interfering with your gym routine… not just doing what you can at the gym to feel like you did something, and protecting your hair investment.” That’d certainly ruin the mood. Instead, I just shrug my shoulders. Everyone has their “come to fitness” moment at different points of their lives.. I don’t know that a social gathering is the proper place to try to evoke someone’s moment without their consent.

In my mind, my priorities have shifted. They’ve shifted to the point where I find it hard to understand the logic anymore. If I’m going to devote my every sunrise to something, it’s going to be my health. If I’m going to go the extra mile for anything, it’s going to be my body. I’ve even decided to be a little vain about it. If I experience pain on a regular basis or a regular burn… it’ll be because I’m workin’ hard on getting my abs cut right or building my fit booty. To me, if I let my priorities switch back to what they were, then I’m going to start gaining weight. I don’t want that.

The usual me... if I'm going somewhere where my braids won't suffice.

Somewhere along the line, too many of us have grown to prioritize something as minor league as our hair over the major league issues, like health. It’s considered unnecessary vanity if I take pride in my abs or my legs (I’m showing off, and deserving of the catty conversation behind my back), but my hair better be on point or… I’m deserving of the catty conversation behind my back. You’re clowned for having “bad hair,” and – not saying you should be clowned for a “bad body” – praised for staying on top of your hair and not having a strand out of place. Hour long conversations can be had about hair products that are healthy for our hair.. “but what’s healthy for our bodies?” Silence.

Maybe I’m just hella skeptical… and I can accept that. But there’s a serious problem with the fact that we can figure out a thousand ways to keep our hair in tip top shape – some of us sitting with mayonnaise, avocado, egg, kool-aid and dill pickle mixtures on our heads because we heard it’ll make it “grow” – but no one’s willing to give healthy living a shot, trying different things to keep our bodies in tip top shape. Something is very wrong when it makes sense to allow something like hair to get in the way of our pursuit of health.

The wild thing about it, really, is that I don’t have any answers. For me, I haven’t put a flat iron to my head in almost ten months. My loved ones don’t even bother asking me to do otherwise. Folks know when it’s me running in the neighborhood because there’s usually about a foot worth of ‘fro bouncing behind me. If I have somewhere to go, I even occasionally jazz it up and put something in my hair. I spend too much time being active to want to sit around protecting a hairstyle. I just prefer to focus my efforts on my body.. and the more I do that, the more I find that others focus their attentions there, too. “For get her hair, did you see her body? Dang!” I’m OK with that. I put in the work, I shifted my priorities there.. that’s what I want… even if I’m rockin’ an attention-grabber like below.

Me... right now. Clipped in the back, up off my neck, breeze blowin' through my scalp? Winner.

b!g(g)2*w@l#

Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: Straight Hair is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: On Self Esteem
2. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: “White Girl Stuff”
3. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: The Booty

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 45 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Black Hair, black hair and working out, blackness, culture, hair and fitness, mentality, priorities, society