Alright, let's open up those
hips. Open up those hips.
Drop project. Regular people
doing amazing things. Alright,
let's go get white guys, dog and wife.
Shake those arms out for me. Come
on. Getting good at running
is a personal process.
It's different for everyone.
And here different is part of the victory.
People kind of looking like we
ain't never seen this before.
Beautiful, beautiful, good work.
Y'all a running group made-up almost
entirely of black runners. I think
it's something that's really
never been presented to us.
If this hasn't been pushed
in our culture to. Hey,
try to run a marathon try to run a half
zone fitness training run
club started in Houston.
In 2017 Theo Murdoch created the Dallas
group in March of 2020.
They meet 3 times a week to run be
social and build community in 202222.
ZFT runners ran their first full
marathon 15 ran their first half.
We got people, 2 years ago.
That probably couldn't even run a quarter
of a mile and they're going on their.
Getting third marathon.
And nearly three years into a health
crisis that exposed gaping disparity,
each of those miles represents small strides
in closing the gap in their communities.
I think people really started
getting serious about their health,
saying I got to find a way to get
in shape what health issues run
in the black community, right?
It's hypertension.
It's high blood pressure.
Hypertension runs.
You know, through my,
through my family sickle
cell health issues, we
started calling underlying
conditions when they made COVID-19
more dangerous for people who have them.
But these chronic illnesses
were already here. And killing
black people disproportionately.
The disparities of especially chronic
medical conditions is not new.
Doctor Carol Lee Estelle is the associate
chief of infection prevention for the
Parkland Health and hospital system.
High blood pressure they
call the silent killer.
Why do they call it a silent killer?
Because you don't feel anything.
But it can be ongoing.
Parkland received more patient
visits for hypertension,
commonly called high blood pressure,
than any other chronic illness
over the last fiscal year.
On its own, it's harmful.
But hypertension is also the
leading cause of heart disease,
which has been the leading
cause of death in the US,
Texas and Dallas County for years.
And black people have died
from heart disease at a higher
rate than any other ethnic
group over the past 20 years.
Late last year,
Parkland and Dallas County Health and
Human Services released this report.
It's a deep dive into the health
issues for Parkland patients and
Dallas County as a whole.
These were the leading causes of death.
In Dallas County in 2020,
black people have outpaced all
other races in six of them,
with five being chronic illnesses.
And it's been that way since 2016,
years before the pandemic,
and want to know what
else they have in common?
Preventability.
The CDC's top recommendations for them
all are to stop
smoking, eat healthy,
and move your body.
In 2020 I was probably the
heaviest I've been my entire life.
Like I had gained £50. Rakiya
ankar is a therapist. When the
pandemic started she shouldered
her clients fears and her own.
OK, this being, you know how
short I AM, 50 extra pounds,
does that make me obese?
Am I putting myself at risk?
But the big push for her
health journey was losing her
mother to breast cancer that year.
There's a strong like hereditary
gene or something in our family.
It was very difficult to see her go
through that because it was so sudden,
she joins the FT months later. Now,
she is training for her second marathon
and that's not all,
so I'm down 40 of the 50 pounds that I
gained. But I would say joining a running
club to me brings a calmer safer space
and that space part is important
feeling safe in your neighborhood
money for a gym membership.
Even access to fresh fruits.
All luxuries not afforded
to everyone. This group
is just one of the resources created
to remove some of those barriers.
I see the ripple effect going
through the city with PFT
in the black community
specifically being able to
engage with. People who look
like me, who care about
their health is huge.
And it was our
culture. Our people, our vibe our energy.
I love it. That is public health and
they're doing, it in a grassroots
fashion out in the community.
The journey to getting healthy is personal,
but you don't have to do it alone.
In Dallas and Morgan you.