Javacia Harris Bowser: Pilates, Body Positivity, and Me

By Javacia Harris Bowser | For The Birmingham Times (An Opinion) I first tried Pilates for superficial reasons. I saw celebrities like Lori Harvey claiming this method of movement was the secret to their six-pack abs and I thought – sign me up. But after my first class, I knew that Pilates was going to change my life in ways that had nothing to do with my body’s shape or size. Though I started Pilates hoping to change my body, my practice has, ironically, helped me fall in love with my body as is. I was reluctant to try a Pilates class at first. I thought everyone else in the room would be skinny, white, 20-somethings. As a size 12 Black woman in her 40s, I would stick out. But after a curvy Black woman in my friend group told me she’d been taking classes regularly I decided to give her studio a try. To my surprise, at the studio I saw not only other Black women but a variety of body sizes and ages too. Some of the instructors were Black and their body types ran the gamut as well. I didn’t feel out of place at all. Still...