Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia

How the female body has 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 importan...