In 2009 I came to the University of Cape Town, an eager and curious young woman who had never set foot outside the confines of the small town in the Eastern Cape that is Queenstown. Everything in this new place was, new. The food, the culture and the environment. The energy of this place was a tab bit too fast for me, after all the only fast-paced thing that ever happened in my town was how quickly women’s society groups cleaned out supermarkets in December preparing for Christmas and imigidi. Food became a predominant feature of my Cape Town experience and it opened a window into many critical questions I hope to share and perhaps ask others to think about as well.
When I returned home that June I had gained 19kg, yes I know I was also quite shocked! My mother kept pressing my tummy hoping I would not suffer the same fate as my aunt – of coming back home with uDegree, a child conceived in university. Fortunately for her, it was overconsumption of residence food and months of emotional eating that had resulted in the widening of my then short stature. I endured my fair share of teasing and staring from the neighbours, commenting about how happy I must be in Cape Town and of course the hurtful snide remarks from a former boyfriend who said I looked 32. The shock and horror of that statement propelled me into a decision that would in fact change my life for the better – I decided to join the gym and start eating less. I had begun to develop breathing problems and could not walk up a flight of stairs without grabbing the railing to ease the agonising burning feeling in my chest.
I consulted a doctor who strongly suggested I start exercising and I took this up with a determined and fearful attitude. I had been the strong black feminist who was bold and curvy and proud of her curves and this seemed like it would be an utter betrayal of my values. I did not want to be another Barbie because of the imagines I had seen portrayed of women and what they were meant to look like but at the same time I was faced with chest pains and the unsettling friction between my oh so curvaceous thighs. As I walked through the gym doors and stepped on the treadmill I could feel the cold stares and the “shame at least she’s trying’’ looks the guys gave me. Looking around, I was one of two big black girls in a gym full of predominately white females who were thin, groupings of really muscular black men and the occasional Indian boy who was struggling with the weights.
I kept at it, choosing to stay at the back of the aerobics class because you see in these classes, they don’t really wait for back-rowers to catch up. And just when I thought that was as bad as it would get, I went home and started jogging in my neighbourhood and I got stares that were sharper and insults that were far more hurtful than I had received in Cape Town. I was told I was trying to be white, didn’t I know, “black men like more meat on their women”. I was discouraged. My own parents told me to not get my hopes up because at home, pap is a staple, and I will gain the weight back. I was told that I was eating like a white person because I preferred to eat grilled chicken instead of the fried chicken I had grown up with.
It has become apparent to me that the pursuit of health has become intensely racialized. Certain bodies are rejected from the narrative of good health. I thought I was overthinking this and I began to consult the explicitly divisive internet tool called – Google. I typed “Healthy Body”in the search bar and within a fraction of a second, the screen was filled with white men and women exercising and vegetables.
In untangling this topic one cannot deny the evidence, the burden of non-communicable disease like coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes etc, have been increasing among black people and it continues to seep into the younger generation. Last year I sat in my public health lecture as my lecturer tried to explain some of the reasons as to why this is the case in South Africa. I was ever so slightly irritated because he evaded explaining how these diseases affect black people predominantly because he would have had to get into an uncomfortable conversation given the hue of his skin. Nonetheless, the numbers do not lie, certainly the hospital databases speak volumes of the system that has rendered health a commodity world over, a commodity that black people cannot afford. As you walk through Cape Town’s informal settlements (to use a pc term) you see plenty of meat and high cholesterol foods on sale. The range of food people can buy is limited and very little of their diet consists of vegetables. This is no surprise considering how expensive fruits and vegetables are, and the situation has worsened thanks to the “organic’’ fad. The same tomato my grandmother grew in her backyard is now sold in a Woolworths for three times what it’s actually worth because it is ‘’organic’’.
I continued to be equally confused when I stumbled upon “free range chicken” at a store because well, most chicken in Queenstown is free range. As you would expect, this chicken was overpriced with fancy packaging. What does this mean given our political landscape? The answer to this is relatively simple if one simply takes a moment to observe and relate this back to the colonial roots that have made sure that black people are at the bottom of the pool where capital is concerned. The people that set food prices, run the farms and genetically modify foods that make you ill are of European decent. Simply put, the current situation is such that only a small fraction of black South Africans are able to afford good health. This means life expectancy is low and obesity is morbidly higher among black people as compared to whites.
This conversation not only calls into question the crooked economics that have increased poverty among black people but the structural barriers that make it impossible for black people to maintain healthy bodies. In simple terms, the isolation of townships means that a worker with a minimum wage income would be expected to pay exorbitant amounts of money to get to work and would be forced to buy food that is affordable meaning this food has less nutritional content. Coinciding with poor living conditions this means you have a perpetual cycle of families who can eat enough to survive but do not receive enough nutrition to fight off infections.
I have spent the last five years living in-between Cape Town and a semi-rural town where all these scenarios play out and for the most part are realities I have personality encountered. Despite structural difficulties, I have lived in a black, female body which makes things even more complicated because various norms dictate I should be heavy whilst the other school of thought says my body does not fit into the attractive category. Even the health gurus suggest my body should be a certain BMI never mind that those figures were based on white bodies which are genetically different from black bodies. However, the fact that I get to keep flaunting my wide hips and making them even wider means I face the struggle of chest pains and sore joints that come with being overweight.
The reason I bring this up is because we have been so fixated in the superficial features of good and ill health at least where females are concerned. Some women are so obsessed with maintaining twerk friendly bodies that ingesting Herbex to look slim has become a norm because we are caught between a social policing of bodies that is rooted in patriarchy. How about we take this conversation a bit deeper and probe into the dire state of health where black people are concerned? How about we take this conversation beyond body issues and into the nuanced social and structural issues that have rendered black people the object of disease? Yes, the economic structures that trap black people into a cycle of unhealthy habits and environments that make them susceptible to disease. Why is it that every epidemic affects black populations the most? Why do we not question the systematic engineering of unhealthy black bodies.
KwaVokotheka 