It’s never a good time whenever the topic of healthy lifestyle habits comes up. Women immediately start calculating what foods to give up to be healthy, but this isn’t the answer. To attain and maintain wellness, little changes to your current eating, drinking, and exercise habits are what counts. These minute changes will help you feel and look better when maintained over time. Before we get to the solution, let’s discuss a little about what the problem is.
The Facts
Obesity is a typical, severe, and expensive disease in the united states. Between 2017 and 2018, obesity was prevalent in over 42% of the American population. Even as the problem affects the entire population, it disproportionately hurts African Americans.
- When compared to non-Hispanic Whites, African Americans are 51% more likely to become obese.
- Amongst African Americans, women have higher obesity than men. Out of every 5 black women, 4 of them are obese or overweight.
- Even amongst black women, black young females face an even higher risk of being obese or overweight. 42% of black adolescent girls meet or exceed the classification for obesity and 95% of them are likely to remain obese in adulthood.
Excessive weight has been linked to many health issues including high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, kidney disease, and some cancers. To check if you are overweight, you can use a simple BMI calculator online to find out if you are above, below, or within a healthy weight. If you’re concerned about your weight, you can talk to your doctor. Certain tests and checks can shine more light on how your current weight affects your wellness. You can also significantly lower your chances of battling health issues if you lose weight. Learning new healthy lifestyle habits like cutting down on sugar and soda can help you get there.
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Consuming Healthier Foods As A Healthy Lifestyle Habit
Research has found a connection between black women’s eating habits and their connection to obesity. The first set of healthy lifestyle habits you adopt should be about your food. Start making better food and beverage choices to banish hunger and improve wellness. Consider the following foods as they are good for you:
- Fruits and vegetables.
- Brown rice, whole-wheat bread, oatmeal.
- Lean meat, seafood, eggs, unsalted nuts, beans.
- Fortifies soy beverages, low-fat or fat-free milk and dairy products.
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In addition to the above, you should also limit your soda and sugar intake. Most of them either add too many calories or add empty calories that aren’t nutritious or helpful to your body. Also, reduce salt as sodium is often responsible for increasing blood pressure.
Getting More Physically Active As A Healthy Lifestyle Habit
Studies show that black women lower their risk of getting obese when they are physically active. Adding 150 minutes of moderate exercise to your weekly schedule will greatly improve your health. If you aim to lose weight, aim for 300 minutes or more of moderate to high-intensity exercise a week. In this area, some activities to adopt healthy lifestyle habits include:
- Brisk walks.
- Running.
- Water aerobics.
- Aerobic dancing.
- Gardening.
Make sure to keep track of your activities and progress when you start. Seeing the effects of your hard work will encourage you to keep going even when the road gets tough. We advise that you get a partner to keep you motivated as you try to build these healthy habits.
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Build Healthy Lifestyle Habits By Following These Black Women In Wellness
If you’re on a wellness journey, you should consider gleaning wisdom from these strong black women. They have pioneered platforms to promote wellness, self-care, and help women build healthy lifestyle habits.
Seeks to simplify veganism for black women so they can live longer, healthier lives. She provides rich information on plant-based eating for the black community.
As a certified yoga instructor, Kelly helps to physically and mentally empower women. she believes this helps them out of struggling and into loving themselves.
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Because Chelsea strongly believes that what she consumes impacts her body, she takes responsibility for it and teaches other women how to do so too. She speaks about her wellness journey to encourage women of color around the world.
Kimberly focuses on the use of healthy beauty products and why black women should care about this when considering wellness. She shares amazing inspiration and tips on her Instagram channel about natural products.
Conclusion
The high prevalence of obesity and overweight cases in the United States hugely affects black women. young black women are even more prone to the sickness of obesity than any other part of the population. This makes it critical that black women begin to watch their wellness practices from a young age. To escape obesity and the dangers associated with it, it’s important to build healthy lifestyle habits in place of harmful ones. Make good use of the tips and pointers explained in this post to live a healthy and happy life you can enjoy. Remember that you only have one body to take you through life. It is very important what you do with it.