You do not have slave genes

What you have is really poor information about what slaves historically ate and why, leading to a belief that black slave-descended Americans have inherited some tendency towards obesity from ‘Mother Africa’.  Black American women do not have a genetic predisposition to be obese that is more extreme than any other ethnic group. 

Black women have bad information about diet and what really keeps the human body healthy.  The overwhelming majority of Americans do, but black women suffer worse from the bad cultural myths about ’slave genes’ and ‘our people just be that way, we fat and look good!’ than do people who aren’t getting socially reinforced to revel in their unhealthy levels of bodyfat. 

Of course this will sound confrontational, but the truth is that black women can be fitter, stronger and as a side effect, often thinner.  But it requires going back to the foods our ancestors actually ate before they were dumped onto those slave ships, the foods that are still eaten today in many African countries.  Surprisingly few of those are the things most American black people think of as ‘what the slaves ate in the olden days’.   It requires abandoning the very recent notion that wheat, soy, corn and grains are super-healthy and have no downsides and are good for you under every circumstance.  It means abandoning the notion that the fatback is what’s killing us, when the fatback’s saturated fats are what can keep us healthy.  It means not overcooking our meats and drowning them in sugary corn-syrup-based sauces. 

It means doing brief, intense strength-focused exercises, not chronic hours of cardio, treadmilling our ways into heart attacks and still not losing bodyfat.  It means taking the good from our paleolithic ancestors’ lifestyles– the meat, the vegetables, the seeds and nuts, the brief but high-intensity strength training– and using those ancient elements to keep our bodies strong and healthy and fit in a modern world full of pitfalls when it comes to health and nutrition and fitness. 

This blog is about our genes and expressing their strength and fitness, so that we can have more energy, more health and improved quality of life.  We are not made to be 40% bodyfat just because we’re black women.  We can be better and healthier for it. 

I’ll save the discussion of what our folks ate in Africa for another post and just leave this introduction to be introductory.