"Dr. Regina Benjamin, the United States Surgeon General has a new message for American women: It’s O.K. to have a bad hair day. 'Often times you get women saying, ‘I can’t exercise today because I don’t want to sweat my hair back or get my hair wet,’” she said in an interview. “When you’re starting to exercise, you look for reasons not to, and sometimes the hair is one of those reasons.'"
"When researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina sampled 103 black women from the area, they found that about a third exercised less because they were concerned it would jeopardize their hair. Of those women, 88 percent did not meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for physical activity, which is 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week, or about 20 minutes a day.
"Dr. Amy McMichael, a professor of dermatology who led the study, said she had noticed over the years that some of her overweight patients would mention their hair when explaining why the gym was off-limits."
For more see: NY Times, "Health Over Hair"