Tuesday 8 September 2015

Khabonina’s gospel of fitness and fun

By Mduduzi Dlamini

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Khabonina Qhubeka, whose lithe body has created a buzz on social media and turned her into a goddess, is well aware of the health risks posed by lifestyle diseases and is taking her fitness regime to women across the country. File picture: Boxer Ngwenya

Johannesburg - Khabonina Qhubeka, whose lithe body has created a buzz on social media and turned her into a goddess, is well aware of the health risks posed by lifestyle diseases and is taking her fitness regime to women across the country.
She hopes to attract women from the low to high LSMs with her fitness routines that specifically target lifestyle diseases.
“(Her regimen) Dance to Fitness also helps in the fight against type 2 diabetes, as obesity is a known factor in its onset,” she says. Data from the Health Department, collated in a 2003 report, indicates that more than 56 percent of all overweight and obese people in South Africa are black women – slightly above the women’s national average of 55 percent.
What better way of keeping fit, she insists, than dancing. She’s also turned common household chores into exercises.
Khabonina is keenly aware of the financial constraints on low-income earners living in shacks, which may keep them from attending gyms to keep healthy.
“The woman living in a shack in Motswaledi, for example, may not have many resources for her child to eat healthily. However, one can show them ways to eat healthily and maintain a healthy lifestyle through working out in their homes,” she says.
The dance-to-fitness boom has shot up noticeably, owing to her promoting her fitness DVD using social media such as Twitter – where she is very active. About the difference between taking a workout as a fun activity and the arduous task of faithfully abiding to a gym regime, Qhubeka may be uncannily right.
According to a European Journal of Sports Science 2003 study whose findings with respect to exercising in gyms may be consistent with South African behaviour, 55-65 percent of new members drop out from gyms in the first three to six months after signing up.
She and her mom, Portia Qhubeka, are today hosting their fourth annual fun-filled Dance To Fitness conference at the Bel Air shopping centre in North Riding, Joburg.
“Many people don’t know that doing household chores can be a fun way to exercise. For instance, the woman polishing her veranda may be firming her muscles.
“You don’t have to go to gym to exercise,” Qhubeka contends.
Her daily dance fitness classes have moved from Orange Grove to North Riding, and her sizzling, sexy fitness regime is becoming compulsory lifestyle maintenance in the wake of the obesity afflicting the nation, particularly among urban black women.

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