Kenya’s fitness boom runs on activewear built for stretch, sweat and shine yet almost no one asks what’s actually in the fabric. By 7 a.m. on a Saturday, Riverside Square in Nairobi’s Westlands neighborhood is already filling up. Dozens arrive in matching leggings and sports bras, water bottles clipped to armbands, ready for a running loop that will most often end with coffee. Four years ago, this was the routine of four friends and a goal to keep fit. Today it is We Run Nairobi, the city’s largest free running community.  On its best mornings, it pulls more than 1,200 people through the streets of  Nairobi’s most upscale neighborhoods. Running clubs are only the most visible edge of a much larger shift. Fitness challenges circulate on TikTok and Instagram. Step-count groups swap targets on WhatsApp and the fitness app Step-Up. Gyms that once sat half-empty now run waitlists. At the Nairobi Bariatric Centre, a clinic that struggled to get clients when it opened three decades ago, doctors now see 10-15 patients a day. Amid this shift, reports show that nearly 90% of Kenya’s cosmetic surgery patients are women. Kenya, where carrying extra weight was once read as a sign of prosperity, is in the middle of a wellness reckoning, and the reasons are real: The World Health Organization’s Kenya office reported in 2025 that noncommunicable diseases now account for 41% of deaths and half of all hospital admissions in the country. Powering all of it, quite literally, is what people…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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