A Larger Role Model for Fitness

At 240 pounds, Jennifer Portnick might seem to be someone who would stay at the back of the aerobics class, hoping not to attract too much attention among her fitness-obsessed counterparts at the gym.

But when Portnick takes the stage in a coral crop top and black bicycle shorts to lead her followers in a high-energy, 75-minute workout, she leaves no doubt that she is calling the shots.

Perhaps she settled that question when she reached an agreement late last month with Jazzercise, the dance-fitness firm that had denied her a franchise because she didn’t look the part. Or maybe it was when she appeared on a morning talk show in a bra top to discuss the agreement--in which Jazzercise reversed its policy--before a national audience.

Portnick decided not to teach for Jazzercise, although the company no longer prevents a person of her size from becoming an instructor. In exchange for that concession, she dropped a complaint she had filed against the company with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. She now leads her own aerobics classes in San Francisco and the East Bay.

“It may be possible for people of varying weights to be fit,” the Carlsbad-based company affirmed in a written statement May 6. “Jazzercise has determined that the value of ‘fit appearance’ as a standard is debatable, and has therefore eliminated this as a means of evaluating franchise applicants.”

Portnick said her newfound celebrity, and her status as hero in the burgeoning size-acceptance movement, “is entirely accidental. I’ve always been a private person. But it’s been such an opportunity for education, and it has also struck a nerve with a lot of people.”

She certainly didn’t start out proud of her ample proportions. A 38-year-old computer systems training manager, Portnick said she began dieting when she was 5 and has taken diet drugs such as the fen-phen combination, Meridia and Dexatrim.

“After 25 years of dieting, I decided this is not healthy,” Portnick said. “The first time I went to an aerobics class, I could not keep up, but I loved moving to music.

“I was not athletic as a kid. I thought physical activity was punishment. I always thought you couldn’t be fit if you were my size,” she said. “Eventually, I realized that not only could you be fit, but you could have a ball doing it.”

Portnick took Jazzercise classes for 15 years. Last year, her instructor, Kristi Howard, suggested that she train to be an instructor herself.

“She’s always been in the front of my class, and she was doing a good, high-energy workout,” Howard said. “My plan was to have her teach the low-impact classes with me because I know there’s definitely a market for people who want to exercise and don’t necessarily want to see me up there.

“I’m tall, so it’s easier for me to stay thinner than a lot of people,” Howard added. “I thought having Jennifer on board would be great for my business.”

Portnick upped her workouts from three days a week to six, and studied and trained intensively for the evaluations that could eventually lead to her certification as a Jazzercise instructor. But after the district manager saw her work out, Portnick was told she had to lose weight before she could advance to the next round of evaluations.

“Jazzercise sells fitness,” Maureen Brown, the company’s director of franchise programs and services, wrote to Portnick last July. “Consequently, a Jazzercise applicant must have a higher muscle-to-fat ratio and look leaner than the public. People must believe Jazzercise will help them improve, not just maintain their level of fitness.”

Portnick said she took the rejection personally.

“No one ever questioned whether I could jump or kick or keep up with the steps,” she said. “I was quite devastated, because I thought I was not being judged fairly.”

Portnick met Sondra Solovay, her attorney, at a meeting of professionals in the size-acceptance movement. That’s when Portnick realized that what had happened to her might be against the law. San Francisco is one of the few places in the country that prohibits discrimination based on height or weight. Other jurisdictions with similar rules are Santa Cruz, Michigan and Washington, D.C.

She filed her complaint in September. After weeks of mediation, the two parties came to their agreement. It was the first case to be settled under San Francisco’s year-old “fat and short” law.

“I wasn’t looking for a lawyer,” Portnick said. “But based on the fact that there is this law and I do live in San Francisco, I felt this was an opportunity for positive change. I’m thrilled about it, and my hope has been fulfilled.”

Portnick’s victory has catapulted her into a national symbol of the active, happy fat person who won’t be intimidated.

“I think Jennifer is a real role model in terms of the fitness industry, and she’s a role model in terms of civil rights,” said Solovay, a weight-discrimination attorney and author of the book “Tipping the Scales of Justice.”

“Your civil rights aren’t going to find you on the couch. You have to go out and get them,” Solovay said.

Portnick’s three weekly classes at Miraloma Community Church in San Francisco attract people with a wide range of sizes and fitness levels. She knows all of her students by name, and shouts encouragement from the stage as she dances and sings along to the music.

“No pain,” Portnick reminds her classes, leaving out the exercise cliche “no gain.” She rejects the notion that exercise has to hurt to be good for you.

Portnick said she advocates a healthy, balanced diet. “A lot of people misconstrue the notion of size acceptance. The opposite of dieting is not gluttony,” she said.

Rather, she promotes the notion that “it is possible to be active and healthy at any size.”