Bad News, Black Girls
Oh, there you are, young black women! Didn't see you there. Yes, well, come in, sit, sit, please. Sit on the good chair. How are you? Everything okay? School good? Good, good. Can I get you anything? Water? Soda? Well. Not soda. Haha. I mean... yes, well, I don't really know how to put this, but, we have a bit of bad news for you.
You see... you are doomed. Health-wise, we mean. No, not all of you. It's just that, you know, we've been telling you all to exercise, and whatnot, and perhaps we ah, haha, you know, jumped the gun a bit, on that. Hey, fun fact, straight from this new study we read about, I don't know if you've heard—you're screwed whether you exercise or not. Whoops! Let's just let the LA Times explain:
The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that among black adolescent girls who moved the most at age 12, obesity at age 14 was nearly as likely as it was for those whose activity rates were far lower.
For white girls, by contrast, regular exercise at 12 appeared a nearly sure way to head off obesity at 14. That finding held, even when the calorie intakes of an African American youngster and her white counterpart were the same.
Exercise, don't exercise, who cares? Your future is in the bag, young black women. While holding open the possibility of redemption for your plump white peers, it seems god has already signed and sealed your metabolic fate. Hope it's a great one!
There's also still that "hundreds of years of institutionalized racism" thing you'll have to deal with. Man. Double whammy, right? Wow.
Did we say this is about black girls? Oh. And the sexism thing, too. Yeah. Ha. Well. Shucks.
Good luck out there.
