BLK & FIT Helps African Americans Take Charge Of Their Fitness Journeys
By Destany Fuller | WeINSPIRE Journalist
A headshot of Cherie White. Courtesy of Cherie White.
SAN MARCOS, Texas – Cherie White has been invested in her own fitness for as long as she can remember. After falling off of her fitness routine and the loss of her grandmother, White decided to take charge of her health once again. Along the way, she had the idea to start BLK & FIT, an overall health organization that serves as a resource for healthy living with the target audience being the African American community.
White founded BLK & FIT in 2019 as an extension of a health section she worked for her friend’s newsletter. The website offers various resources for those interested in taking charge of their health. These resources focus on improving the overall wellness of people through five areas: yoga, nutrition, healthy living, workouts and mental health.
White said her relationship with fitness began at a young age when she began waking up early to do Richard Simmons workouts as a child.
“There was a workout show called ‘The Richard Simmons Show’ and he did 30-minute workouts, hour workout at five in the morning,” White explained. “I remember getting up every morning to workout with Richard Simmons, and I was in the dark because I didn’t want to take up the house. I was just dedicated, even then, to fitness because it just felt so good to be moving.”
Cherie White on a run. Courtesy of Cherie White.
White was involved in various sports growing up and remained active until she left for college. She said she began to slip-up during college with late-night snacking and an unhealthy diet. During her sophomore year, she lost her grandmother due to complications from diabetes. White realized that a change in her grandmother's diet and exercise could have been altered and maybe even saved her life. At this point, White told herself, “this doesn’t have to be” and became serious about her fitness once again.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African Americans are more likely to live with and die from causes like high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes at a much larger capacity than White people. The likelihood of death from these ailments only increases with age for Black people, more specifically between the ages of 50-64 years old. Younger African Americans also live with these diseases and also die at a higher rate than White people.
CDC Graphic of diseases African Americans face in comparison to other races. Courtesy of CDC “African American Health" page.
White shared that she’s also motivated by her family to be the best version of herself. She said that without taking care of herself, she feels she wouldn’t be good for either her children or her partner.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, White noticed that the problems her grandmother fell victim to years prior were having an impact on the Black community as well. She wanted to share tools to help people make healthy differences in their own lives.
“The coronavirus pandemic really made me realize that there was a need for Black people to take more ownership of their health,” White said. “When the pandemic started, I said this was something… necessary. I wanted to be able to provide resources for Black people [and] particularly focus on ailments that plague the Black community.”
In this era of the pandemic, fitness information and content began to rise from various people and platforms on the internet. White said she finds this variety to be both useful and important for people who are on different fitness journeys.
“I think it’s good to have variety out there,” White said. “There’s different levels of fitness, but there’s something for everyone out there.”
White says that one of the biggest challenges she has faced is getting people to think more non-traditionally about their health, specifically in their workouts and diets. With that, she also said that her biggest success was how many people within her target audience she reached. White said that one of her favorite parts of running BLK & FIT is her ability to inspire others in the Black community.
“I just love continuing to learn about the fitness and health industry,” White shared. “Being able to share that with people really makes me happy. Even just checking out the latest trends and trying to figure out how to communicate that to the Black community and make it fit.”
Cherie White wearing BLK & FIT merchandise. Courtesy of Cherie White.
Her biggest mission is to stress to her audience that Black people can workout the same as everyone else. She especially wants to make this point to women who she says have the most reasons not to work out.
“I really focus on Black women because we’re the anchors of our families,” White said. “It’s still a little difficult, it’s getting better, but as far as working out we hear a lot of reasons why [they] can’t.”
White doesn’t plan on stopping with just BLK & FIT. She hopes to start putting together multi-city health expos, virtual workouts and even podcasts to continue sharing her knowledge and passion.
“I’ve always had that love of health and wellness,” White said. “I’m glad to be able to share that.”
To learn more about BLK & FIT, visit their website or their various social media pages.
Watch Full Interview Here
