Natalie Nimmer

In the Fall of 2002, a World Health Organization team visited Wotje for a non-communicable diseases project. Every adult met with the team and left their appointment with a health card indicating their weight, girth (measurement around their stomach), and height. This card included a chart showing heavier weights and larger girths corresponded with increased health risks.

Once everyone received their health cards, the WHO team flew away, leaving nearly everyone with the idea that they needed to lose weight to improve their health. Unfortunately, the WHO team did not leave any resources to help people to make this lifestyle change.

I had been living in the RMI for about three months at the time of the WHO visit and people on Wotje could see I had lost weight. I arrived in the RMI at 225 pounds and was down to about 195, on my 5’8” body.  Some thought this meant I was homesick, others thought I was pregnant, and others told me I looked “jejjot.”

The truth is that I was really hot all of the time and the thought of eating heavy food while sweating profusely was not appealing. Plus, before moving to the RMI I had an exciting social life in Washington, DC, that included nightly happy hours and restaurant dinners. Transitioning from that indulgent lifestyle to Wotje made it easy to lose weight.

A couple of Wotje ladies showed me their WHO health cards and asked if I could help them lose weight since they saw I had lost weight. It made me laugh because I was the least likely person to give fitness advice because I had struggled with being overweight since I was a teenager. But I also really liked these women and knew that it would be a fun activity to host some fitness classes.

Each Tuesday and Thursday, I borrowed a scale from Claudia, the elementary school principal, and the classroom of Connie, the third grade teacher. About two to seven women joined for a dance routine to Footloose (one of the few cassette tapes I had), then ran loops around the classroom, and finally, did sit-ups, push-ups, and stretches.
It never occurred to me that Marshallese women would never have learned these kinds of exercises in school. Since they hadn’t, it became an opportunity to teach and also to laugh a lot! Wotje women are known for being the funniest people in the RMI, and some of the most joyful and hilarious moments of my life happened during these fitness classes! Looking back, I think Elloise and Libouj intentionally did the exercises wrong to make me laugh!

Each week, we recorded our girth and weight in little books I had made for each participant. Everyone who regularly attended the classes lost weight. It was a success from a health perspective, but more importantly because of the friendships with the women.