Being fit is really important, we hear. So we guess it’s a good thing that Barbara Trujillo Gomez has created a fitness guide for Latinas. God knows our fitness needs differ from those of other women. But we could not help cringing so hard our left kidney spontaneously exploded at an interview with Barbara. Quite a workout, cringing is:

Hola chica! Think your behind’s too big or your thighs too wide?

God. What?!

That’s what Barbara Trujillo Gomez thought too, until she began learning to embrace what she calls her Latin curves.

What about people built like spicy Latin ironing boards?

Now she’s written “…Barbara por Atras” — A Latin Woman’s Guide to Fitness (B&B Fit; $17.95) with childhood friend and fitness trainer Blanca Rodríguez.

Barbara from the back? Really? This is like naming your child “Gaylord” and being completely surprised when he comes home from the playground with his underwear over his head. On to the interview:

Q. What’s the title mean?

A. Barbara por Atras is the second half of a well-known compliment that translates: “You’re heavenly from the front, amazing from behind.”

Yes, being objectified, probably by a strange man on the sidewalk, is totally a compliment. Every time a man with an apparent great disdain for shirts with sleeves leans into us and calls us “Mama” or “Guerita” we want to turn around massage his prostate.

With a bowie knife.

Q. Why did you think Hispanic women needed their own fitness book?

A. Our bodies are different and we need to accept that. When I was a young girl, I wanted to be thin. That was my obsession. But I’m Cuban. I have curves. I’m voluptuous. This is who I am.

Hi, no. What irritates us infinitely more than Anglo-centric, mainstream media outlets not understanding us at all is when people who are themselves Latino willfully perpetuate stereotypes. No, Barbara. Our bodies are not “different.” Latinas are not homogenous. Some of us are built like hourglasses, some like rulers, some like Mack trucks. There is no such thing as “Latina fitness” because there is no such thing as a “Latina body.”

We’re Cuban. Our curves are somewhat… uncurvy. We’re not voluptuous. And it’s definitely not who we are. Because being Cuban — or any other nationality — has very little to do with one’s thighs. And to promote the idea that it does is to make people who are already marginalized into nothing more than their bodies. So, please. Cállate ya.

It is so incredibly infuriating to us to see someone, especially a woman, especially who is Cuban, joyfully buying into and perpetuating stereotypes we try really, really hard to disassociate from. And, granted, maybe some people enjoy being a stereotype and molding themselves to conform to them. But their decision to do so impacts how people, in turn, view US. And we’re just not ok with that.

Q & A on Barbara Trujillo Gomez’s Latina fitness guide [Sun-Sentinel]