GirlTrek: How black women are walking away from the obesity epidemic

Their risk of stroke is almost twice that of white women, reports the CDC.

They are more likely to die at a younger age than women of other ethnicities, the heart association said.

Vanessa Garrison and T. Morgan Dixon refuse to accept this future, and formed the nonprofit GirlTrek to reclaim their health through walking.

“It wasn’t because we were walking enthusiasts or because we love to walk. When we started we were just trying to save our own lives,” Dixon said.

“How do we not fall in these pitfalls that our mothers and our aunts and our grandmothers have fallen into? Eighty percent of us are overweight and carrying that weight is killing us now at disproportionate levels. We can’t do it anymore. We can’t carry it anymore.”

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