Elaine Gonzalez Johnson wanted to find a way to inspire women like her.
Women like her: women of Latino heritage living in the United States.
In 2012 she found inspiration herself when she participated in the 10 miles Broad Street Run with more than 30,000 runners. She realized that not many runners were, at least in appearance, like her. “I’m sure there were Latinas there, but I felt alone,” she said in an interview with Ukee Washington of CBS Philly.
She had gained more than 20 kilos during her pregnancy and was looking for ways to lose them.
A month passed and she opened a Facebook group that would later become a running club. She used the social network to call on Latina women to walk or run 2.5 miles every Saturday morning, as Jenssen Tussaint writes for Al Día News.
More women came every week.
Gonzalez was born and lives in Philadelphia; her mother and father are from Puerto Rico. The growth of the running club led her to found Latinas in Motion, to “encourage, inspire and empower women to get active,” with a healthy lifestyle.
“The power of social networks is what really catapulted Latinas in motion from juts me to hundreds of women,” she told Washington in the CBS Philly interview.
The data on the health of the Latino population in the United States support all the reasons why González Johnson founded this project.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a state-run health institute, Hispanics, particularly Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, are 50% more likely to die of diabetes than Whites. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for Latinos; diabetes is the fifth leading cause of death. They have the same probability as the White population of suffering from high blood pressure, but they surpass in 24% the inefficient control of this condition. The Hispanic population is 23% more obese.
And it is three times more likely that a Latina or a Latino does not have health insurance than a White woman or a White man.
The same data say that risk factors for the Hispanic population increase considerably if they were born in the United States: obesity, for example, is 10% higher than obesity of Latinos who emigrated from other countries.
According to Boston Scientific’s non-governmental initiative Close the Gap, heart disease is precisely the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. Racial minority women like Latinas, the data continues, are more likely to develop risk factors for coronary heart diseases, including death from them, although they are less likely to recognize those risks. And 72% of them are obese. In fact, the Latino population has a higher tendency (39.8%) to be inactive –not exercising– than the White population.
Latinas in Motion promotes physical activity, but also, in a broader sense, self-care. The organization has the purpose of changing the statistic, so they begin by contradicting them. “We pride ourselves in exercise, good nutrition and self-care.” They do so not only with running, but also with cardio exercises such as dancing –zumba– or walking.
During Latinas in Motion’s first five years, Elaine Gonzalez Johnson worked full-time in the School District of Philadelphia. She resigned in 2017 in order to devote herself to Latinas in Motion and also to become an entrepreneur. She has other projects: Plan, Pray, Slay. The Planner, and Mogul Mami (she is the mother of a girl and a boy).
“I believe my purpose is to really inspire and encourage women to live their absolute best lives, but doing so in a healthy way,”, she told Al Día News’ Jenssen Tussaint.
Latinas in Motion has already expanded. In addition to Philadelphia, it has chapters in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico, and it continues to grow.
The group of runners now meets every Thursday. The organization also promotes an annual 5K race in Philadelphia in which everyone, not just Latinas, can join.
Elaine Gonzalez hopes the project will be replicated in every state in the United States.