MEETING DATES
August 2nd
Introduction: The Original Epidemic
August 16th
Part 1: The Beauty of the Robust
August 30th
Part 2: Race, Weight, God, and Country
September 13th
Part 3: Doctors Weigh In
TIME
5:30 - 7 pm PST
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PLACE
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THIS MONTH'S READ
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
Sabrina Strings, PhD
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Winner of the 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological Association
The female body been racialized for over two hundred years.
There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor Black women are particularly stigmatized as “diseased” and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat Black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago.
Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals—where fat bodies were once praised—showing that fat phobia, as it relates to Black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority.
Fearing the Black Body argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. Indeed, it was not until the early twentieth century, when racialized attitudes against fatness were already entrenched in the culture, that the medical establishment began its crusade against obesity. An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn’t about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice.
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