In the West, we commonly believe that the aversion to fatness is rooted in medical concerns, especially given the purported “obesity epidemic.” However, studies have shown that the aversion to fat bodies in the West precedes medical warnings about any presumed relationship between size and health. Further, research has long-established that the group most likely to be denigrated for being fat is Black women. In this presentation, Strings will show that contrary to popular beliefs, fatphobia is not rooted in health concerns. Rather, it arose as a mechanism to justify the booming enterprise of slavery through the degradation of Black people, and Black women in particular, as unrestrained in their “animal appetites.” Moreover, when the medical establishment elected to take up questions regarding the relationship between fat and health in the 20th century, physicians chose BMI as its proxy, a tool mired in colour-blind racism.

This event is a collaboration between Studium Generale and VIERNULVIER.

• Sabrina Strings is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She previously held an appointment as a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.