Politics takes consistent effort to see any sort of progress. The gym is the same way. Day in, day out—it's diligence that gets results. I’ve always been intrigued by the connection between health and politics, so when I saw Congressman Jamaal Bowman put up 405 pounds on the bench press, I needed to know more—to learn more not just about his regimen for impressive gains but also his vision for a better future.
A middle-school principal-turned congressman, Representative Bowman decided to take control of his health after the pressure of his fist term in Congress took a toll on his body. But he’s not just improving his health for himself, but to take on the good fight for an upward battle in the trenches of U.S. politics. We chatted about why young folks shouldn’t give up on politics, the need to stop looking for excuses, and why health and education are the keys for a better future, and why sugary cereals should perhaps be banned.
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GQ: Talk to me about the bench press for a second. I played college football. I was a wide receiver. And the most I got up to was about 330, so 405 is…wow!
Jamaal Bowman: It was the first time I had ever done 405 in my life. So I guess I'll start there. The week before, I did 345 for like three, maybe even four, and I was like, “OK, if I could do that for three, I could get 405 for one at least.” So the following week, I just did 405 lb for one. And yeah, man, you know obviously very proud to be a 46 going on 47-year-old person, and being able to do that. I guess I'm even more proud because I haven't been the best in terms of taking care of my body over the last several years, so I've kinda re-dedicated myself in 2023 to just be consistent in the gym. I've been consistent since early January, and to get up to 405 in like two months is pretty cool.
I find that at least a little bit similar to your political journey. One day, you kind of just said, “I'm gonna try to decide and go out and do it.” Do you think that there are lessons that you've taken from the field that you then apply to your health and wellness and vice versa? How did you take that leap?
100%. I'm a pretty optimistic person, in general, and I have pretty good belief in myself, belief in others, and just belief in what's possible overall. Even before I ran for Congress when I worked in education, I worked in the school system for seven or eight years, and I didn't feel like the school system was really doing enough for our kids. So I wrote a proposal for a new school, and I opened up a brand new public middle school in the Bronx. I ran it as a principal for 10 years.
I don't like sitting around and complaining and whining and looking for excuses. I've always been the kind of person to kinda just go for it. Just kind of put it out there. I guess it started with my mom way back in the day, where she told me I could be anything I wanted to be. But also, just from an athletic standpoint, the icons of my era growing up were like Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson in his prime, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, John Elway. These larger-than-larger-than-life figures. Then later on in my life, you know, Derek Jeter. He was always a big role model and he's just incredibly great. So I'm the kinda person when I see greatness in the world, I feel like I got a little bit of that in me. I feel like everybody has a little bit of that in them and I think we all just need to just say, “screw it” and go for it.
I'm personally interested in the connection between health and politics, because I don't think a lot of people see that connection. A lot of younger folks—I'm 32— and a lot of younger folks might not believe in politics anymore. So you ever believe we're irretrievably broken? Do you think there's too much polarization for important things to pass on anything but party lines for the foreseeable future? How do younger kids not give up hope? How do we course correct?
The only thing that's final is death, so nothing is irretrievably broken, right? But young people have a right to feel disconnected from politics, because politics has been disingenuous. It's gone away from serving the people, and it does a lot more to serve the wealthy and corporations, which is why people like me are trying to get big money out of politics completely. That's why people like me don't take money from corporations, because we don't wanna be accountable to corporations or the military industrial complex or pharmaceutical companies. We wanna make sure we stay focused on serving the people. So I understand why young people feel that way.
But when you look at my race and my success—coming out of nowhere, I had never run for any political office before, and I ran for one of the biggest offices in the country, against someone who had more money than me, more name recognition, and more power than me. Because we organized the grassroots, we were able to win and win big in that election and we were able to win re-election. Then there are others in congress too like Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez who also came out of nowhere and were able to win against another long-term incumbent. So hopefully we try to continue to provide hope to people.
But also to the first part of your question, I can't overstate how stressful my freshman term in Congress was. When I won my election, Trump lost his election. From that point he started to push the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Then three days after being sworn into Congress, there was an insurrection, a coup d'etat attempt, to take over the government through violence by American citizens. It was the first time that happened in U.S. history. We were still in the middle of a global pandemic that was killing tens of thousands of people a day. Shortly after being elected, my wife's favorite uncle passed away. A month and some days after I was sworn in, my father-in-law passed away. Then the next day my mother passed away from COVID. That was all a tremendous amount of stress personally and the country is going through that stress.
I was not exercising, not eating right, drinking a little too much, and living a real unhealthy lifestyle. It was pretty much faith and passion for the work that kept me going. This year, after being re-elected and being sworn in, it was the first time I was able to really decompress and really realize the stress and trauma the previous two years and how that impacted me and my staff, because I also had staff members who had lost family. That was tough.
This year, going to the doctor heavier than I had ever been in my life, with my numbers being off in terms of my blood sugar and blood pressure? I was like, “Yo, F that.” I asked the doctor, “What do I need to eat? How do I need to work out to make sure I'm not on meds for the rest of my life?” They told me to load up on protein, eat as many green leafy vegetables as possible, and kill the refined carbs completely. Kill sweets completely, or as much as you can.
So I did that, and simultaneously got back in the gym. My body had started to literally feel weak—I was feeling weak as hell. I used to run sprints and jog and I couldn't even run any more. It was crazy. So I went back to the gym, and I honestly feel like a new person—I feel like I'm mentally sharper, emotionally more stable, I physically feel better, obviously. Then I read some research where they said when you work out... I forget exactly how they phrased it, but stress increases cortisol levels, so it literally lives in your blood, and when you lift weights and work out, you literally exercise it out of your body. So that's kind of the mindset I've been going in with and being consistent in my approach.
You just talked about how you were able to go to the doctor and get better preventative health care and have those screenings. You're able to go to the gym. Not everyone can do that. And in politics, there are certain things that seem to help that get stuck in the gridlock. There's something called the PHIT Act, which would allow possible reimbursement for things like a gym membership, or the GET CARE Act, which will hopefully get better preventive health screenings for individuals. So the question that I have is, why do things like this seem to get stuck? What is something about politics that normal people don't understand or should perhaps be fired up about that could help these things move forward?
Yeah—I also want add to the policies you just mentioned, the policy of Medicare for All or a single-payer universal health care system. One of the reasons why I was able to go to the doctor and get a check-up and be able to afford it is because I have health care, and there are millions of people who do not have healthcare so they’re never even going to take that trip to the doctor. (There's another conversation about lack of trust between doctors and communities of color that we can put on the side for now.) But there are members of Congress and elected officials in either state houses and local municipalities across the country who believe that the private sector should solve many of America's problems. Whether that's healthcare access, housing access, education, environmental justice, they want to leave that to the private sector, as opposed to the public sector and really investing in people in a way that ensures their ongoing health and well-being. What I can see is a very toxic part of our capitalist system where the ultimate goal is money and profit over people.
The gridlock in Washington happens because, just taking it from a Democrat-Republican perspective, Republicans want to cut back government spending by five trillion dollars over the next 10 years. They think we need to balance our budget and we cannot continue to spend this much. So that's what they think. Whereas Democrats want to invest more in people. We believe that the more you invest in people, the more they help grow the economy, and the more you grow the economy. So that, generally speaking, is the divide. But then you have even certain Democrats who are also pro-corporate Democrats. I'm not anti-corporation, I just think the public sector has a responsibility to make sure people are educated, healthy, have a home, and have opportunity and are safe.
I know we talk a lot about housing and banks, but I don't think people see and understand the health sector as well. One big thing that's happening right now is coming up with legislation and definition for what foods are allowed to be called “healthy.” I guess we could all agree that, say, Lucky Charms or Froot Loops probably aren't healthy. But then you have the sugar industry and those conglomerates lobbying against the FDA being able to say that they're not because it's infringing on their so-called free speech. So how do we find the proper middle ground here? How do we work in the best interest of the health of a community when especially Black folks and other under-served populations should not be consuming a gross amount of those foods because it's harming them. How can it ever change?
It can absolutely change. To me there's no middle ground. We shouldn't be selling Lucky Charms or Froot Loops—we shouldn't be selling that stuff. The other part of it is, to get the ingredients that we need, we have to cut down rainforests and literally harm the planet in order to create foods for children that are filled with sugar and other horrible ingredients. There's a focus on, again, profit by any means necessary.
We need a movement to save humanity from the perspective of health and well-being. Our diets are terrible, what we feed kids in schools is terrible. We don't even have mandatory physical education in schools. It’s an economy built on consumption and profit and not on help. The only way to shift that is people like me and others continuing to speak truth to power on these issues, but also organizing from the grassroots to change it in local government, state government, and federal government.
Facts. So building off of “truth to power” I'm always fascinated by marketing messages. One of the things that you've said before is “If we defund police and shift funding to things like healthcare, wellness, trauma centers, drug and alcohol treatment, para-support networks, restorative justice, we don't have a need for such a large militarized police force,” which I totally agree with you on. But I've become interested in why hasn't it been positioned as something like, let's say “refund the people.” So the question that I have, especially with how the younger folks are so involved in social media marketing messages, do you think there could be an improvement in the marketing slogans or the way that the progressive wing of the Democratic party is reaching its constituents?
Yeah, so I would ask you to not even frame this question as a “defund the police” question and frame it differently so that my answer could be different. The reason why I'm saying that is to your exact point, because it's not even about that, it's not even about being antagonistic towards police. I personally have moved past that, and many others have moved past that, because that term was simply a rallying cry for organizers and activists in the street during the biggest pro-Black life movement in our country's history. So that's what that was. It's not a policy prescription. The policy prescription is in passing legislation and investing in a public health approach to public safety.
Now, what is a public health approach to public safety? Here's what we know: We know that the majority of the people who are incarcerated and the majority of people who commit harm against the community, whether it's crime or in another way, they struggle with insecure housing, poverty, complex trauma, substance abuse challenges. Mental health challenges as well. So we know that we need to invest in anti-poverty programs, education, dealing with the issue of substance abuse and mental health, housing as a human right, and just the overall nurturing and self-determination of historically marginalized communities.
It's not a mistake that communities that were historically redlined by the US government have the highest crime rates. It is not an accident, right? When you can contrast that to a community that has low crime rates, they don't have low crime rates because they have more police than everybody. They have low crime rates because they have resources, they have wealth. So it's about the public health approach to public safety and investing in the nurturing, a self-determination of people within a particular community, that's how you create communities and a nation of health and well-being—which, by the way, will support the economic development of the nation.
JFK had this essay called “The Soft American”, which basically laid out four key points that he thought could improve the physical health of this country. He seemed to make a lot of sense, but they didn't really go anywhere. I'd love to hear from you two to four quick points: How do you think we could improve physical health in this country?
Transform our education system. I don't need two to four. That's one, that's all we need to do. Just make sure our kids are playing and active and moving in our schools. One, make sure they are eating healthy foods in our schools. Two, make sure they have access to healthy affordable foods in their communities. Three, make sure they have access to extracurricular activities and place faces in their communities so they can live a life of healthy eating and constant exercise for joy and engagement. That's it.
It's exciting to hear, especially as a fellow Black male in the trenches. The last question that I'll leave you with is what I ask everyone I interview. Anybody that's reading this interview—why should they take control of their health and wellness?
Because you take control of your life. A lot of times, and I've done this, right, you put your health and wellness and concerns in the back of your mind, and you tell yourself if you continue to ignore it, it goes away. But what it does is it creates anxiety, it creates a panic, and it creates a lack of knowledge about what exactly is going on with your body. So go to the doctor, get your check up, know what your numbers are, and then live a lifestyle in alignment with improving your numbers.
To everyone out there, especially Black men, get a prostate exam. Get a colonoscopy. Go to the doctor. We understand this country's history with healthcare professionals. I'm crystal clear on the Tuskegee Experiment, on what happened with Henrietta Lacks, medical apartheid, and how Black enslaved people were experimented on. Very well aware of that history, and that history is real. Very well aware of current numbers around maternal health and Black maternal health—it’s real.
However, going to the doctor is a proactive measure, and asking the doctor questions and following up, helps you to take control of your health and well-being. If one doctor is not a good fit, you can go to another doctor. There are doctors of color if you're more comfortable there. It's just about your own self and self-determination. That's why you have to take control of your health.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
