Soul FOOD: An Examination on the Physical Activity of Black Women
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Date
2023-12-15
Access
2026-05-01
Authors
Walker, Jalen
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
East Carolina University
Abstract
Overweight and obesity diseases lead to various critical health issues, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. These diseases severely and disproportionately affect the Black female population as obesity rates are increasing at an alarming rate. Studies show that 80.6% of African-American women ages 20+ are overweight or obese and African American women have the highest rates of physical inactivity in comparison to other gender/ethnic groups. With African American women having the highest rates of overweight and obesity-related diseases and physical inactivity, it is a public health priority to develop and promote a program to develop and promote weight loss strategies for this underserved population. Intensive Lifestyle Interventions are used as a framework to combat obesity by providing increased physical activity recommendations, reduced caloric intake, and behavior therapy. These interventions have shown success in primarily White populations, but there has yet to be a feasible option provided specifically to the Black female community. Intervention guidelines such as physical activity recommendations and a reduced-calorie diet must be presented in a different manner than the traditional way. We have developed a program that not only provides an intervention that is feasible and attractive to the African-American female community but also creates a community amongst this population to continue to promote physical activity and healthier diet choices within the African-American female population. While ILIs incorporate behavioral counseling, they lack individualized tailored health coaching and the support for “how” to make the change. Focus group data collected in the Fall of 2021 provided data to develop a physical activity and nutrition program for Black women by Black women. This program was delivered virtually, due to COVID-19, to Black women to examine the impact of a tailored physical activity and nutrition program. Each week, Black women engaged in health behavior classes, social media groups, buddy programs, and either a physical activity or nutrition class. Women were provided with a Garmin physical activity tracker throughout the duration of the study and were asked to log their physical activity levels. We will examine physical activity data from the project to determine the impact the Soul FOOD intervention had on Black women’s physical activity levels.