Key Takeaways
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we spoke with Jessie Diaz-Herrera about body liberation through exercise and the power found in creating a body-positive fitness environment. Read on to learn how Jessie’s heritage informs her work and how she believes culture influences people’s attitudes about fitness. Finally, learn how body liberation and body positivity can allow your clients with plus-size bodies to find joy and empowerment through dance and exercise.
Jessie Diaz-Herrera is a dancer, group fitness instructor, and body positivity advocate who has dedicated her career to exploring and celebrating all bodies in dance. She is the co-founder and CEO of Power Plus Wellness, a Latina-owned business curating private movement classes and events for plus-sized bodies to jiggle freely, unlearn diet culture, and joyfully co-regulate in a safe community.
ACE: Can you tell me a little bit about the type of work you do as an exercise professional?
Jessie: Yes, of course! My name is Jessie, and I’m a group fitness instructor and co-founder of Power Plus Wellness, where we curate private wellness events for plus-size communities to access fitness and healing, free from diet culture. I’ve been involved in sports and dance my whole life—from dancing in studios and on stages to playing softball and rugby—so I’ve always been active and in a plus-size body. My mission is to show that athletes come in all shapes and sizes, and my goal is to help more people fall in love with movement beyond focusing on appearance.
ACE: Your Instagram account (@CurvesWithMoves) is a “body positive page which encourages men and women to love their bodies through dance, affirmations, and more.” Why is body positivity so important to you? How do you think that provides a different type of fitness experience for your clients?
Jessie: I talk more about body liberation than body positivity these days because I believe that to truly feel good in our bodies, we must be liberated from the idea that we need to conform to societal norms. We know that health is influenced by a combination of factors—physical activity, nutrition—but also mental well-being, sleep, genetics, environmental conditions, and access to healthcare. So instead of focusing on external changes, my mission is to emphasize how liberated our bodies can feel when we move in ways that bring us joy.
For example, strength training makes me feel powerful, something you might not see from the outside as a plus-size trainer. Swimming gives me a sense of peace and playfulness—experiences that bring joy to our bodies. As plus-size folks, we’re often conditioned to shrink ourselves, especially in fitness spaces, when in reality, we deserve to take up space and move in ways that feel good. Don’t wait on your weight to do the things that bring you joy—do it with the body you have now. Your body deserves joyful movement.
ACE: Does your heritage inform the work you do? If so, how?
Jessie: I’m proud to be part of a Latina-owned company, alongside other Latinas in leadership and on our team at Power Plus Wellness. In a space where fitness often feels dominated by a certain aesthetic, we are claiming our place. Culture influences fitness by shaping attitudes, beliefs, and practices around physical activity. For many Latine folks, dancing is woven into the fabric of life. It’s a part of nearly every celebration, centering on joy and family. Dancing with my family has given me countless joyful memories, and it’s why I continue to dance and teach dance fitness to this day. I build community through dance.
ACE: What lessons have you learned from working with your clients? Do you have any tips or strategies to share with pros who are interested in doing similar work?
Jessie: Fitness is for everyone, but not every fitness program is for everybody. I truly believe in modifying and/or finding the right workout for each individual. A body-affirming perspective means meeting clients where they are and embracing modifications or alternative movements that feel good to them. Not everyone finds joy in dancing or running on a treadmill, and that’s perfectly okay. Some people light up when they swim take a leisurely walk in nature or feel empowered lifting weights. The most important thing is to create space for people to explore movement in a way that feels joyful and empowering, without the pressure of conforming to unrealistic standards.
ACE: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to highlight about yourself, your work, or your experience in the fitness industry?
Jessie: I truly believe the work we do in fitness goes beyond movement—it’s about building meaningful connections that nourish both physical and mental wellness. A wide range of research shows that positive, supportive relationships are key to improving overall well-being and even longevity. That’s why creating inclusive, welcoming spaces is so important to me.
At Power Plus Wellness, we take pride in cultivating loving, open-minded, and judgment-free environments that are trauma-informed, weight-neutral, and body-curious. We want everyone—no matter their size, shape, or experience—to feel empowered to explore movement and thrive!
If you are interested in learning more about how to create a more inclusive and size-friendly fitness space, consider A Space for Every Body: Addressing Weight Bias in the Fitness Industry (worth 0.1 ACE CECs). You’ll learn from a panel of experts about how to communicate with clients of all motivations, goals, and body types, as well as how to identify and use proper terminology, tone, exercises, and modifications to create more inclusive programs.
Inclusive Fitness Services: Ensuring Accessibility for Clients with Disabilities
Key Takeaways
This is the third of a five-part series from Lakeshore Foundation that will move through the five domains necessary to provide a comprehensive approach to ensuring that you are offering inclusive fitness programs and that your fitness center is accessible to all individuals, including those with disabilities. Join us as we move through the five domains to ensure your fitness center is welcoming to everyone. Read Parts 1 and 2 here:
The Built Environment
Inclusive Instruction
Read on to discover how carefully considered services can be the key to inclusive and equitable fitness. And, use the step-by-step process to evaluate your current services and make improvements to create an experience that is welcoming to all individuals.
What Is a Peer Assistant?
A peer assistant is someone who is there to help. They do not necessarily need to have an exercise background, but they must be able to follow the instructions and help participants in the class who may need extra attention. For example, the peer assistant could help grab equipment for an individual or help them remember what exercises to do or where to go next in a circuit class.
Being inclusive with your services is really about taking that bird’s eye view of everything you offer and making sure individuals with a disability can participate. In Part 2 of this series, we covered inclusive instruction and educated staff, which is key, but individuals also need to be able to get to your class and be successful and engaged while they are there. For example, it may be helpful to provide multiple instructors in a class or a peer assistant who can help when needed as the instructor gives instructions.
Also, ensure that your staff uses inclusive language in their classes so that all individuals feel welcome to participate. For example, instead of just saying “walk” or “jog,” they could say “move.” If someone requires an interpreter, that service should be included at no extra charge to them.
Providing accessible transportation or knowing where and how someone could find accessible public transit could be a big benefit for your clients with disabilities who don’t drive.
Your services are what sell your fitness center over the competition. If you aren’t including people with disability in those services, you are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to serve the one in four adults in the U.S. who have a disability—not to mention the revenue that comes with reaching that underserved population.
Along those same lines, it is important to make sure that your advertisements and promotional materials include individuals with disabilities so that all potential customers feel included and are recruited to participate. We recommend that one in four advertisements use inclusive language and imagery, such as a person with a disability exercising. Individuals with a disability will not just assume that you are equipped to work with them, and they shouldn’t have to reach out and ask. Put those marketing dollars to work by using inclusive promotional materials.
Inclusion Solutions
Consider taking the following steps to improve the inclusivity of the services you offer:
Look into accessible transportation in your area and see if there is a current gap.
Provide inclusive and adapted classes wherever appropriate.
Provide opportunities for interns, students, or other members to serve as peer assistants.
Make sure one in four of your marketing and communication materials is inclusive in both images and language.
Survey the disability community to see if your current services meet their needs.
Resources
Community Health Inclusion Dashboard
Certified Inclusive Fitness Trainer
Best Practices for Accessible and Inclusive Communications
Check out this blog to learn more about Lakeshore Foundation and Serving Clients with Disabilities. And be sure to read Parts 1 and 2 of this series:
The Built Environment
Inclusive Instruction
The Longevity Buzzword: Understanding Aging, Lifespan, Healthspan, and the Role of Exercise
Key Takeaways
This wide-ranging and fascinating conversation explores our current understanding of longevity science, lifespan vs. health span, and the role of exercise in aging. Longevity is a commonly seen buzzword on social media these days, so health and exercise professionals need to understand the science behind the term and be able to explain it to their clients. What factors have led to an extension of our lifespans and how are they related to long-term quality of life as we age? What can a person do to expand their longevity while being mindful of their quality of life? And, finally, what is the role of health and exercise professionals when it comes to longevity? Read on for some expert insight.
One of the great privileges of working as a personal trainer is the opportunity to connect with incredible people from all walks of life. Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to work with clients who are not only successful but also smart, funny, and inspiring. Among them is Laura Carstensen, PhD, a psychology professor at Stanford University and the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Dr. Carstensen’s research is globally respected, and she is a highly sought-after speaker in the field. I am truly grateful to count Laura as a friend, and I’m especially thrilled that she took the time to meet with me to discuss the topic of longevity.
It is so good to see you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. You have been working to raise awareness of the impacts of increasing longevity of our population throughout your career. Recently, the term “longevity” has been used by people to promote so-called solutions to natural aging changes. Can you share your perspective on longevity?
Dr. Carstensen:
Well, first let me distinguish two terms, longevity and aging. Longevity simply refers to the length of something. You could talk about the longevity of a car, the longevity of a person, and it’s the longevity of humans that has changed. So that’s the big news. Aging refers to the process, the biological physical process that we don’t understand fully at all. It is this process that changes our basic physiology and physical functioning. That’s aging. Right now, the cause of aging in humans is theoretical. We don’t know why humans age or what the underlying mechanisms are. There’s a lot of exciting research right now where scientists are trying to understand just that—what changes people as we get older that changes our physiology and our health.
It’s called geroscience, and the aim is to slow that process. So, if we can understand what it is, then we might be able to do something to curb it. So, the promise there is spectacular. Imagine getting older chronologically, but not changing biologically at the same time. So that said about aging, aging to our knowledge hasn’t changed over many thousands of years.
So, the aging process hasn’t been altered. What has been altered is longevity, and that has nothing to do with this kind of research. It has nothing to do with the supplement industry or even healthcare. It has to do with the odds of making it to old age. We added, or I should say our ancestors added, 30 years to life expectancy in a single century. And they did it by investing in science that helped us understand how diseases came about and how they were spread. So, we were able, through community partnerships, to inoculate young kids against diseases they would never have to suffer.
Other things that don’t get any credit are garbage collectors—the systematic disposal of waste. Once we understood how diseases were spread, we set up community-wide, systematic disposal of waste, and garbage. And so that increased our health and the likelihood that we would survive. Agricultural technologies, for the first time in human history, began to provide a steady food supply throughout the year so that when fetuses were gestating, mothers could have proper nutrition throughout the term of pregnancy. So, now we can have better diets and nutrition throughout the year.
The other thing that changed was electrification. We discovered electricity and with electricity came refrigeration, which meant that every American household now could have refrigerators and take care of food. A hundred years ago, two of the top causes of death were the flu and food-borne illnesses because we couldn’t care for food in a way that kept it safe. So, electricity, agricultural technology, sanitation, and medicine all contributed. What came around the same time, in the early 20th century, is we put public education in place in every state in the nation. And today education is a better predictor of length and quality of life than any other variable.
That’s the story of longevity. That’s how we doubled the length of time that we live. It isn’t… we exercise more, we take vitamin D… none of that. So, I think now when you look at the longevity businesses that are around, that’s what they’re around (supplements, etc.). And probably what people need to understand is there is very little, and for most of these products, any evidence that they would have a long-term effect on longevity. If people have a deficiency in a particular nutrient, it makes sense to supplement it. But the idea of people taking 50 to 60 supplements… all these people are espousing these things that in the best-case scenario may not harm, but there’s no evidence, in the long run, they’re going to help you. But no doubt, in many cases they’ll hurt you.
So, what is the best thing someone can do to impact longevity?
Dr. Carstensen:
The best thing we know now for health and longevity, for living a healthy long life, is to exercise. And I don’t need to say that to you, but there’s nothing better, nothing better. People will sometimes say to me, “What’s the best thing people can do?” And then they say, “Maybe exercise?” And I say, “No, no. Only exercise!” Exercise affects every organ system, the brain, mood, bone density, muscle strength, your heart—all of those things are affected by exercise. I had a conversation, a hallway conversation, about five years ago with a bunch of biologists who are trying to understand aging and doing research on trying to increase healthspan [i.e., the number of years a person can live without chronic or debilitating disease] and even lifespan, some of them. And I said, is there any possibility that the pathways through which exercise works will end up being the same pathways that you’re going to end up zeroing in on that extend long and healthy life? And all of them said. And in fact, they all expect that that’s the best idea. So today, when people say, what’s the best thing you can do, I even think in terms of the basic science of longevity, this geroscience today, none of those things are on the market. We don’t have any idea if any of them will ever work. A lot of them work in mice, which is great for mice. It’s not going to help humans. The best thing people can do is exercise.
That’s wonderful. It’s, well, one, you have amazing friends that you can have that hallway conversation. That’s so cool. And two, I think – what an interesting question that you asked about investigating the pathways of how exercise influences the body. And it’s fascinating to hear that that is the way people are thinking about it. From the perspective of, well, wait, we see this effect but, if this is the effect, what’s causing it?
Dr. Carstensen:
Right. We don’t know why exercise works either, but there are reasons to think it changes mitochondria.
Is longevity about the quality of life, quantity of life, or both? Can you elaborate?
Dr. Carstensen:
There’s a lot of talk about longevity and living longer, and people want to live to 100 120, and 150. It’s how healthy are we going to live? So (over the last century), we suddenly got 30 extra years, and what’s happening now is, on average, about 10 of them are not in great health. So, we’re living longer, our lifespan has increased, our longevity has increased, but our healthspan hasn’t met that. And that’s the aim of some of the most important research that’s going on in science writ large. I mean, to the extent that we can understand, why it is we age, what are those changes, and then find ways to alter them either through behavioral practices like exercise or through some kind of a pharmacological supplement, we might be able to live healthier longer, and that would be fantastic.
I’m not waiting for the drug. And I think anybody who’s over 50 today shouldn’t be waiting for that drug. You can’t predict when science is going to have a breakthrough. What we do know is that brilliant people are working on this problem, and there weren’t any 25 years ago working on this problem. So that’s exciting and it’s promising, but at this point, don’t wait for the pill and just exercise.
I love how you’ve made the distinction between aging, longevity, lifespan, and health span. And I think that’s so important for people to understand. And I think that’s exactly what I was trying to get at, and I didn’t have the vocabulary.
So, what are your thoughts on these practices that keep popping up as “longevity” practices?
Dr. Carstensen:
We just don’t have the timeline to be able to make that kind of a claim. I think the one that most people would agree with is exercise. I mean, even if an ice bath might make you feel better the next day, is it going to make you live longer? These practices haven’t been around long enough to know if it makes you live longer. So, I don’t think there’s much we know today that says, this is how you can live longer. But one of those things me, that I value quality of life and there are things I do that are not good for my health. I know they’re not, but I like life better that way. But those are things I think individuals can make decisions for themselves. But if you’re reading these books and saying, oh, I better do that and I better do this, and I don’t eat enough carrots or I don’t… just relax, chill.
You are touching on something so important, and I think it kind of goes to the last question I have for you. How can exercise professionals and health coaches best serve clients that are focused on longevity? Are there specific strategies you’d recommend? And I think that’s a little bit what you’re touching on right here. Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit and how you see it for those professionals?
Dr. Carstensen:
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s pretty clear—very clear—that people need strength and they need to have cardiovascular integrity as they live. So those things are important. And I think beyond that, you have to know what it is people like to do and what they want to do, in terms of activities. If you want to go out on hikes, there are different things you need to do than if you care about that. I do care if I can walk three miles in a day. I do care if I can garden if I can get up and down off the floor. So, it varies by person. I’d want to know what it is they want to do and then help them get there. And the same kind of reasoning for diet and other kinds of practices. If you hate tofu, don’t eat it. There are other things you can do. If you love red meat, eat it. But eat it once a week. Experiment with things that’ll get you a little bit healthier and don’t make life miserable to the extent that we become unhappy because we’re trying so hard to live long. I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even have to finish that sentence. It doesn’t. It’s illogical.
Final Thoughts
My key takeaway from my conversation with Dr. Carstensen is that while longevity and healthspan are being used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Though our clients may come to us asking for longevity, what they are seeking is a high quality of life for as long as possible. According to Dr. Carstensen, this is longevity and healthspan together. My second takeaway is that the process of aging is the reason we see this decrease in health span. I have to say that I agree with Dr. Carstensen, I’m not waiting for any pill. If strength training and cardiovascular exercise are the things that I can do to have a positive impact on my healthspan… well, I’ll keep doing that.
