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Posted on 08/22/2020 9:42:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Watch the new CBSN Originals documentary, "Speaking Frankly | Fat Shaming," in the video player above. It premieres on CBSN Sunday, August 23, at 8 p.m., 11 p.m., and 2 a.m. ET.
Perched on a couch, Sabrina Strings relates the story of a conversation she had with her grandmother.
"My grandmother is a Black woman from the South, grew up during Jim Crow, and for her, being able to eat regularly was a triumph. One time she told me that she got a basket of oranges one Christmas and it was one of her happiest memories," she recalled. "But when she decided to move to California in 1960, as a lot of Black people were doing at the time ... she encountered for the first time a lot of White women in her integrated community who were on diets, and she was like, 'What? Why are White women on diets?' This was something that she puzzled over for years, because no one could really provide her a satisfactory answer."
It was her grandmother's stories like this one that inspired Strings, who is now a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, to pursue research on the history of fat-phobia — the fear of fatness due to the stigmatization of weight — in the Western world.
Fatness wasn't always culturally undesirable in the Western world. For centuries, being heavier was actually considered an attractive characteristic. Artists like Peter Paul Rubens and Titian famously portrayed heavier female bodies as the pinnacle of beauty in their works.
As the art and fashion historian Anne Hollander wrote in a New York Times article from 1977, "The look of actual human bodies obviously changes very little through history. But the look of ideal bodies changes a great deal all the time."
While the 1977 Times article considers the switch to thinness as the preferable body type to be part of "a period of revolution in both taste and politics" in the late 18th century, Strings' research traces how that "revolution" is actually rooted in slavery and Protestantism.
"With the dawn of the slave trade, skin color was the original sorting mechanism to determine who was slave and who was free. But as you might imagine, with slavery progressing through the century, skin color became a less reliable source of sorting various populations," Strings explained to CBSN Originals.
"Therefore, they decided to re-articulate racial categories, adding new characteristics, and one of the things that the colonists believed was that Black people were inherently more sensuous, that people love sex and they love food, and so the idea was that Black people had more venereal diseases, and that Black people were inherently obese, because they lack self-control. And of course, self-control and rationality, after the Enlightenment, were characteristics that were deemed integral to Whiteness."
Strings found that these ideas about Blackness were "synergistic" with Protestant and Christian ideals. The "Protestant ethic," initially coined by sociologist Max Weber in 1904-1905, describes the concept of hard work and self-discipline as highly valued traits that would lead to eternal salvation. The "mortification of the flesh," or the act of putting sins related to the body to death by abstaining from certain pleasures, is a concept common to all Christian denominations, reflected in practices like fasting or abstinence. Strings says that many of these ideas were taken up by Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the U.S. in the 19th century.
"What they wanted to do was show that they were both morally upright and racially proper, in the way in which they ate and how they maintained their figures," said Strings. "And so, they were very clear that to be of the elite race and to be a Christian peoples means that you need to show what they would call temperance in the face of food — or restraint is the way we might think of today — because if you did not show temperance, that was evidence that you were one of the savages, and also, that you were un-Christian."
While the medical community and public health officials continue to study the serious health risks associated with obesity, Strings' research provides context around the social and cultural issues related to weight — and the legacy of racist and outdated ideals embedded in many of our common assumptions.
"We cannot deny the fact that fat-phobia is rooted in anti-Blackness. That's simply an historical reality," she said. "Today, when people talk about it, they often claim that they don't intend to be anti-Black ... they don't intend all of these negative associations, and yet they exist already, so whenever people start trafficking in fat-phobia, they are inherently picking up on these historical forms of oppression."
There is an ice cream ad popping up on youtube that has some porker prancing around while gobbling a pint because “she deserves it” or something. Shades of the Marlboro Man. I wonder if she gets to sue when she has to have her diabetic feet chopped off.
And of course, it's not a black woman's fault if she has no self-control. She's fat because of Trump and racism.
I remember the live production of Jesus Christ Superstar shown on tv in 2018 with lefty John Legend as Jesus. The cast was the most diverse ever seen from all previous renditions. If you watch it, you will see faces of many colors and people of many sizes EXCEPT fat white women. Plenty of big guys and a few fat black women. But absolutely not one single fat white chick.
Fat-shaming is still alive and well. It's perfectly fine to do it do white women, but you're a racist if you point the finger at a black woman.
they decided to re-articulate racial categories,
What a huge pantload.
NO ONE decided any such thing.
Wow! And that's on top of the German tradition of possessing robust mid-sections. But, yeah I see a lot of fatsos around down in the valley towns. Teens and children even. Has nothing to do with black or white. People just pound junk food and sit around on their asses all day. I never see them out on the trails or swimming in the many lakes around here. Just the 40 and up crowd - well, not crowds. More of an East Coast thing. I don't see as many fatties in CA or CO. Quite the opposite.
This is a crock. Now I’m racist if I don’t yearn for fat women?
“And of course, it’s not a black woman’s fault if she” ________________.
Fill in the blank. Many choices.
Writer’s a young white Karen for sure.
https://mobile.twitter.com/taytaylormooney?lang=en
I think the SJW Karens of today lack that which a woman naturally needs — children. When young. Children that adore them, want them, need them, tell them “I love you, Mommy!” a lot.
But, our childless Karens instead look for attention in poor substitute activities.
I worked with European visitors here. They were uniformly amazed by how much Americans eat, how little we walk and how we tolerated our obesity.
Several said they would be eating less and riding their bicycle more upon return home, to lose their “American fat”.
Why are black Americans so noticeably more obese than non-blacks? I think most people know, but it’s another “truth that shall not be spoken” about American blacks.
Will the writer investigate European black obesity?
“With the dawn of the slave trade, skin color was the original sorting mechanism to determine who was slave and who was free.”
Bullcrap.
L
I don’t know about fat-shaming, but I do know that we have an awful lot of obese people on food stamps.
It’s nothing they do. The black community’s health issues are Racism as a Public Health Crisis.
It’s all Whitey’s fault, and don’t you forget it.
Interesting that in the late 1960s, Mama Cass’ obesity was considered exceptional. Today, her figure looks about average.
This is what I truly cannot understand. I've been overweight and it changes everything ... I'm angry at myself, depressed about how I feel and look, totally unmotivated to do anything, unproductive, and I move differently i.e. lumber. In other words, feel like crap all the time.
In addition to that, why don't women want to LOOK GOOD for their men anymore?
Because they want to maintain their non-fat figures. Duh.
Garbage.
“When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
1968:
2017:
In South Africa:
Some graphics:
This is where liberals confuse discrimination with discrepancies. There is universal discrimination against the obese. There are a variety of reasons why blacks are fatter, on average, than whites.
Good for you to use the lockdown months to improve your health. Too many have used it as a time to eat more.
That commercial has made it to television too. I suspect the easily forgettable company that makes the ice cream is beyond desperate to market their product to anyone before collapsing financially. Nothing like selling psychological issues as normal.
The woman in the commercial is obese and needs help, not encouragement.
There's a direct correlation between the lack of open space an obesity. A study of large cities a few years back showed San Diego that showed the highest amount of open space and lowest obesity where Philadelphia had the least open space and highest obesity.
That said, I fully believe the largest contributor to obesity is processed foods as the chemicals in them throw off the body's ability to adjust its metabolism.
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