{"id":8837,"date":"2017-05-15T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=8837"},"modified":"2017-05-14T14:38:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T14:38:15","slug":"jogging-while-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2017\/05\/15\/jogging-while-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Jogging While Black"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Rashawn Ray, <\/span>“Black People Don\u2019t Exercise in My Neighborhood: Perceived Racial Composition and Leisure-time Physical Activity Among Middle Class Blacks and Whites,” Social Science Research<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2017<\/span><\/div>\n
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Photo by Emanuel Leanza, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Research shows that both race and class can influence health, physical activity, and exercise, yet little is known about how multiple identities intersect to influence fitness habits. If middle-class adults are more likely to exercise than low-income adults, then why are middle-class blacks less physically active than middle-class whites? <\/span><\/p>\n

To examine how race, class, and gender all intersect to shape physical activity,<\/span>\u00a0Rashawn Ray<\/a><\/span> designed \u201cThe Barriers and Incentives to Physical Activity Survey,\u201d which asked 482 respondents questions about their physical activity habits as well as about how they perceived the racial composition of their neighborhood. The study only included black men, black women, white men, and white women, oversampled for black men and women, and used demographic factors like occupation, education level, and income to identify middle-class respondents. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ray found that the perceived blackness of a neighborhood had a remarkable influence on who participates in physical activity. Most notably, he found that \u201cblack men\u2019s level of physical activity significantly decreases in neighborhoods perceived to be predominantly white whereas black women\u2019s physical activity significantly decreases in neighborhoods perceived to be predominantly black and urban.\u201d Unsurprisingly, white women and white men are more likely to be physically active when living in neighborhoods that are predominantly white.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div> \u00a0Ray draws from intersectionality and feminist literature to make sense of the findings. Women\u2019s concerns about safety and street harassment, Ray suggests, may influence black women\u2019s reduced activity in neighborhoods perceived of as less safe, which are typically urban and predominantly black. Safer, more affluent neighborhoods are also more likely to have resources like childcare and women\u2019s-only fitness spaces that could increase the likelihood of physical activity. On the other hand, black men experience frequent criminalization and may avoid physical activity in predominantly white neighborhoods where they are perceived as\u00a0threatening. They may opt to exercise in predominantly black neighborhoods, even though these neighborhoods were identified as having fewer resources than white neighborhoods.\u00a0 For many black men and women, the risks associated with physical activity may outweigh the benefits of exercise.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

These findings highlight the complex relationship people have with\u00a0their bodies, their activities, and their communities. It also suggests that for many black men and women, the risks associated with physical activity may outweigh the benefits of exercise. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rashawn Ray, “Black People Don\u2019t Exercise in My Neighborhood: Perceived Racial Composition and Leisure-time Physical Activity Among Middle Class Blacks and Whites,” Social Science Research, 2017 Research shows that both race and class can influence health, physical activity, and exercise, yet little is known about how multiple identities intersect to influence fitness habits. If middle-class […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,33,13,14],"tags":[21998,37335,37334,37332,88868,17208,37333],"class_list":["post-8837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender","category-health","category-inequality","category-race","tag-exercise","tag-gender","tag-health","tag-inequality","tag-jogging","tag-neighborhoods","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8837"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8843,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837\/revisions\/8843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}