Closing the wellness inequity gap: One Downward Dog at a time

People often ask me what led me to become a Pilates instructor. I reflect on my experience with yoga. It was a fitness relationship of humble beginnings, me at my grandparents’ house in the mid-1980s, contorting about on a plush blanket.

Things have certainly leveled up for me in the fitness department, but it’s not lost on me that, even then, I was privileged. I may not have had a membership to a sleek yoga studio (not that one existed on the Southside of Chicago in 1987), but I did have a working television tuned into PBS broadcasting an hour of yoga every day. The lack of wellness access wasn’t something that was discussed much forty years ago, especially among Black people. Unfortunately, the risks of wellness inequity are too high to ignore today.

According to the State Data Center of Iowa, Black people constitute 4.4 percent of Iowa’s population. According to 2021’s State Health Registry of Iowa, Black Iowans’ life expectancy is nearly five years younger than their white counterparts (74.8 vs. 79.3).

According to Dr. George Weiner, director emeritus of the University of Iowa’s Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, this is further impacted by “. . . lack of access to quality health care, cancer screenings, or healthy diets while having increased rates of obesity and tobacco use.”

Wellness inequity appears to be the root of what ails our people. It is also the center of a conversation I had with health practitioner and owner of Soul House Wellness, Sarah Van Cleve. Van Cleve is a certified yoga instructor and social activist.

She teaches weekly sessions at Cedar Rapids’ Breathing Room Yoga, including a class called People of Color (POC) Yoga. Keeping these classes centered around Black and Brown people as donation-based is one integral way Van Cleve works to bridge the wellness inequity gap and ease any preconceived notions about the practice.

“The more resources we can have to strengthen our mind-body connection there’s a higher likelihood that our people will participate,” Van Cleve said. She added: “If we as Black people are reluctant about the practice, the expectation to pay pushes us away.”

Another way Van Cleve makes wellness accessible to Black people is by recognizing the bias that exists in many wellness circles. From race-related barriers to religious blockages, Van Cleve spoke frankly about what keeps Black people from movement spaces. Being the only person of color in a movement class is most prevalent: “You go in those spaces, and no one looks like you. There’s an assumption that you have to have certain attire and equipment to practice.”

There are also knee-jerk assumptions about movement and religion.

“I think this comes from a lack of knowledge and understanding of what yoga is and why it’s beneficial,” she said.

Another barrier is using Sanskrit words in practice, often erroneously assumed to be a dialect used to pray to other deities.

“I try to use less Sanskrit [in POC Yoga class] because it can be isolating and unrelatable,” Van Cleve offers for those willing to consider yoga as a movement practice.

Creating a comfortable space where Black people feel seen in the studio is one of the ways Van Cleve dares to minimize wellness inequity in the state, but it doesn’t stop with her. Those who consider themselves allies need to step up for people of color in wellness, she contends: “Be more intentional about the connections you want to make. Eliminate ‘we are one’ colorblind bypassing language and offer more donation-based classes.”

Van Cleve acknowledged that wellness inequity doesn’t have to be the end of the story for our state.

“Iowa has hidden pockets of extraordinary people who are doing amazing things,” she said.

I couldn’t agree more because Van Cleve is one of those people creating less inequity and more movement for Black Iowans – one Downward Dog at a time.