NPR's Fresh Air show says people's desire to be thin stems from end of slavery | Daily Mail Online
Man I'm glad that my aversion to being fat has NOTHING to do with health. It turns out that I'm really just a white supremacist.
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A guest on NPR's show Fresh Air promoted the idea that the desire to be thin stems from white supremacy while discussing how parents should communicate weight with their children.
Journalist Virginia Sole-Smith appeared on the show on Tuesday to discuss her new book Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture which includes the theory that fat phobia can be traced back to the end of slavery in the US.
Her argument is that when slavery was abolished and African Americans started gaining rights, white supremacists sought to maintain old inequalities by demonizing black bodies and glamorizing thinness.
'This is really about maintaining systems of white supremacy and patriarchy,' she said on the show.
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'The chronic experience of weight stigma... is similar to the research we see on chronic experiences of racism or other forms of bias,' Sole-Smith said.
Sole-Smith also cited the work of Sabrina Strings, and her recent book Fearing the Black Body. Strings argues that the modern aversion to being fat has nothing to do with health but is instead a way of using weight to perpetuate racism and classism.
'Her research talks about how, as slavery ended, Black people gained rights, obviously, white supremacy is trying to maintain the power structure,' said Sole-Smith.
'So celebrating a thin white body as the ideal body is a way to "other" and demonize Black and brown bodies, bigger bodies, anyone who doesn't fit into that norm,' she added.
Sole-Smith proposes that toxic American attitudes around weight can be combated by encouraging parents to normalize fatness.
Man I'm glad that my aversion to being fat has NOTHING to do with health. It turns out that I'm really just a white supremacist.
