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Strong Women
Muslim women deserve better access to fitness – here's how we can all help
By Alia Waheed
4 years ago
Muslim women are among the least likely demographic to take part in any physical activity outside of the home – but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to go to the gym or train as part of a club. Here’s why it can be difficult for hijabis to break into the fitness world, and what the community could do to make it easier.
According to This Girl Can, a campaign run by Sport England to encourage diversity in fitness and sport, Muslim women are among the least likely to take part in any physical activity outside the home – with only 18% working out in public, compared with 30% of women overall. Sport England was so concerned about that gap that they have been actively looking at ways to encourage more Muslim women into sport and fitness, including looking at how current facilities can be more inclusive. In my experience, joining a gym can be intimidating at the best of times - but add a hijab and there’s suddenly whole new layer of complication.
“There continues to be gaps in activity levels between people from different ethnic backgrounds which is very concerning,” explains Kate Dale from This Girl Can. “This includes things like a person’s gender, religion, ethnicity, culture and lived experiences, and the role that these and other factors play in shaping attitudes and motivations towards being active. We found that many of these barriers were linked by one theme – a fear of judgment.”
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