Worth the effort: self-empowerment as the missing link in women's health and fitness

Peg Jordan

A three-year attitudinal research projects suggest many women exposed to our patriarchal, celebrity-obsessed, appearance-oriented culture will rarely adopt long-term health and fitness behaviors that bring them satisfaction and heightened self-esteem. On the contrary, such a culture often creates resignation, how self-esteem despair.

In-depth interview of 45 women and short interviews of 340 others, both men and women, revealed a critical step toward adopting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle was accomplished when women transferred authority over their bodies from an external agency to themselves. External agencies varied from parental authority, husbands, boyfriends, physicians and clergy to messages promoted by the fitness industry, the media, celebrity images and general hype.

I began to look at the fitness movement from the standpoint of scripted Hollywood messages, a glut of exercise videos with questionable role models and TV show pushing ineffective fitness products. Sadly, a new contagion of hype and competitive promotion was pushing fitness instructors. Much of our work was only making hard-core enthusiasts obsessive and narcissistic. It didn't seem to be reaching or motivating countless women.

Breaking Cultural Norms

When a woman has been treaded as an object, never given the recognition of being a unique, autonomous, effective person, the split within her own psyche can be pathological, according to Jessica Benjamin, author of Bonds of Love (Patheon Books, $16). But is it pathology when the entire feminine element within a culture is dominated and undervalued? Are women just responding to a cultural norm?

I interviewed women along every stage of the health/fitness continuum. I was seeking a broad view of women's health. As a journalist, I could no longer do cover stories for the manufactured fitness "leaders" and siliconed, surgerized celebrities that preached body obsession. Also, I grew disgusted with the continued bias and discrimination in women's medical research and treatment. I finally realized both ends of the spectrum contain the elements of disempowered lives.

According to national surveys, more than 80% of the American population do not practice lifestyle behaviors they know they should. Most national surveys indicate "lack of time" or "inconvenience" as top reasons for non-adherence. However, standard exercise questionnaires are not objective--they are replace with a male-as-normative, athlete-as-warrior bias that there is one way to achieve health and fitness. They also assume social life is orderly and rational, according to Joyce McCarl Neilsen. I think of the single mother with excessive demands, complexities and responsibilities she copes with every day--not to mention the hostile social context in which she lives.

The question I posed to women in an interview process focused on the following issues. (Note: Specific breakdown question for exercise, nutrition, stress management, spiritual well-being, emotional belonging were offered.)

* How do they take care of themselves?

* What value do they place of themselves?

* Where did they place the authority for their bodies and health?

* Have they made a significant shift toward adopting or departing from healthy habits?

* For those who achieved a turn-around in sickness or unhealthy behaviors, what, steps were taken toward mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual well-being.

* What tools or everyday practices do they use?

* How do they monitor their health?

Releasing Judgment

In 90% of the in-depth interviews (and noted in 287 out of the 340 shorter interviews), judgment was a central theme. Interviewees talked about the humiliation and self-consciousness they experienced in most health club settings. Much of their exercise experience was grounded in memories of early failures during P.E. classes--not being picked for teams and doing poorly on nationally standard physical fitness tests.

Weight and Body Image

Of the 45 in-depth interviews, every woman reported a history of anger and depression over weight and body image with varying degrees of professional counseling. Women reported feeling low self-esteem, failure, guilt and "habitual conflict with food." At least 80% of the women practiced restricted eating and denied their biological need to eat in order to "look good." Several women admitted never getting control of eating disorders or binge behaviors despite knowing what they were doing was seriously damaging to their health.

Physical Activity in General

Depression and anger over "not being in control" of their lives seemed to prompt more unhealthy behavior in at least 65% of the respondents. Women said they handled anger and depression by smoking, overeating, losing their appetite or sleep and calling friends. Only 12% reported taking walks when upset.

Intense activity, which would be characterized as overexertion or possibly exercise addiction, was experienced by the majority of women who were at the fit end of the continuum. Several reported exercising at least few hours at a stretch in order to "feel good again."

Relaxation Skills

For the women who achieved healthy behaviors or felt they turned around poor habits, a variety of relaxation skills were important to their day-to-day well-being. Included were meditation yoga, listening to music, aerobics classes, massage or bodywork, and recreational pursuits such as hiking, cycling and time spent with nature. These women insisted relaxation skills were more important than anything else in keeping balanced and well.

Establishing Healthy Habits

One of the assumptions of the fitness industry is everyone should perform the same behaviors. We should all exercise four times per week at target heart rate, eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, strength train three times per week, follow stress management techniques daily--as if our moral salvation depended on it. It is a one-size-fits-all prescription with no room for individual needs.

When women realize their worth as empowered beings, they naturally do what is best for them on an individual basis. They may follow the prevailing model of health and fitness, or they may follow their own dictates. In either case, their actions are self-crafted, self-initiated, and genuinely in tune with their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs.

When a woman listens to her inner voice, she suddenly has a new vibration for self-healing. Subtle yet clear, this "listening" seems to require a moment in which a woman unhooks her cultural view of who she is and what she should do. I started to notice this phenomena in self-transformative behavior and asked other women how they pulled off their own healing or turned around unhealthy habits. A few told me how they had to "unhook" from the outwardly pleasing social "Self" who placed authority outside themselves.

In a culture that values mind over nature and body, reason over emotion, male over female, is there something that must heal on a deeper psychic level before women start exercising, eat a healthy diet, or take better care of themselves? If there isn't, women are simply following the fitness bandwagon for all the wrong reasons. After conducting this research, I see wholeness and empowerment must come first, then healthy behaviors will follow.

By conducting a thorough inventory of their lives, questioning assumptions about possessions, relationships, activities, career choices, and the structure of their lives, women were able to jettison outworn beliefs. Three of the women said that this allowed them the energy to recapture enthusiasm and add new meaning to their lives. Several believed that energy had been freed up with this shedding of outmoded material. This regained energy allowed them to change habits or proceed with healing therapies.

For some women, the energy was directed toward summoning up their greatest will and refusing to accept limiting prognoses. They would classify their energy as a "battle against the forces, both internal and external--that paralyze our spirit and keep us from living full and rewarding lives." Others were not in battle against anything, but were using their newly freed up energy to join a higher vibrational energy that they saw as a sacred healing force. In all cases, women moved from passive to active roles, from stale to renewed states.

This conscious new inner relationship allowed movement away from an addicted, mechanical or neglectful outer life. Somehow, women were no longer at the mercy of culturally-imposed images of female perfection. Instead, they were guiding themselves through new territories of intersubjective reality, toward healing and empowerment.

I wish to thank the following for their support in this three-year project: Annie Benton, Connie Kirk, Ph.D., Victoria Johnson, Jane Fonda, Nancy Gillette, M.S., Melissa Johnson, Joan Lunden, Pat Lyons, R.N., Amy Harwell, Gail Giordano, Merrily Bronson, Mary Guidron, Ph.D., Shelly McKim, Gayle Banks, Larry Chapman, MPH, Robert Gorsky, Ph.D., York Onnen, Michael O'Donnell, Ph.D., Michele Mannion, Ph.D., Molly Mettler, MSW, Steve Ramirez, MPH, Laurie Metcalfe, M.S., Cheryl Radetsky, James Protaska, Ph.D., and Beverly Rubik, Ph.D.

Peg Jordan, R.N., is founder and editorat-large of American Fitness magazine. She is author and editor of several books on health and nutrition topics.

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning