Ah'm still full from Thanksgiving!
[Breitbart] The fight against obesity is rooted in “racism,” according to a Scientific American essay that claimed black women “consistently experience weightism in addition to sexism and racism,” and the prescribing of “weight loss” has “long since proved to be ineffective.”
In a tweet from the Scientific American Twitter account sharing the piece on Wednesday, the popular guide — which is the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S. — claimed the “heightened concern about black women’s weight reflects the racist stigmatization of their bodies.”
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“It also ignores how interrelated social factors impact black women’s health,” it added.
The piece, originally published in volume 323, issue 1 of the science magazine
| ...that’s the June 2020 issue. Why did the magazine bring it up again now? |
and titled “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity,” was authored by Sabrina Strings, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and Lindo (formerly Linda) Bacon, a self-proclaimed “genderqueer,” who serves as an associate nutritionist at the University of California, Davis.
While asserting that the prescribing of weight loss to black women “ignores barriers to their health,” the essay details the health challenges they face.
“Black people, and Black women in particular, face considerable health challenges,” it begins.
“Compared with their rates in other racial groups, chronic cardiovascular, inflammatory and metabolic risk factors have been found to be elevated in Black women, even after controlling for behaviors such as smoking, physical exercise or dietary variables,” the essay continues.
In addition, the piece claims black women “have also been identified as the subgroup with the highest body mass index (BMI) in the U.S., with four out of five classified as either ‘overweight’ or ‘obese.’”
Many doctors, the authors contend, “have claimed that Black women’s ‘excess’ weight is the main cause of their poor health outcomes, often without fully testing or diagnosing them.”
“While there has been a massive public health campaign urging fat people to eat right, eat less and lose weight, Black women have been specifically targeted,” they allege.
Though the “heightened concern about their weight is not new,” the authors argue that it “reflects the racist stigmatization of Black women’s bodies.”
“Nearly three centuries ago scientists studying race argued that African women were especially likely to reach dimensions that the typical European might scorn,” they write.
According to the authors, by “blaming Black women’s health conditions on ‘obesity,’” they are ignoring “critically important sociohistorical factors.”
“It also leads to a prescription long since proved to be ineffective: weight loss,” they write.
Additionally, the essay argues that initiatives to help people reduce weight are overwhelmingly unsuccessful:
Despite relentless pressure from the public health establishment, a private weight-loss industry estimated at about $70 billion annually in the U.S., and alarmingly high levels of body dissatisfaction, most individuals who attempt to lose weight are unable to maintain the loss over the long term and do not achieve improved health.
“This weight-focused paradigm fails to produce thinner or healthier bodies but succeeds in fostering weight stigma,” it adds.
In response, many ridiculed the popular scientific magazine essay.
“If you focus on the unique challenges of obesity in particular groups, you’re racist. If you don’t, you’re racist because you’re erasing bodies of color and girth,” wrote professor and author Gad Saad.
“All roads lead to bigotry,” he added. “I’m allowed to say this because I used to be differently-weighted.”
“You know what seems way more racist? Ignoring science and common sense information that is literally killing people under the guise of protecting them from ‘racism!’” wrote Donald Trump, Jr.
“Pretending that certain people are somehow immune to health issues associated with obesity seems sociopathic!!!” he added.
“Telling people not to be fat is not racist,” wrote conservative host Sara Gonzales.
“This is literally ‘public health disinformation’ that would have real-world potentially fatal consequences, if anyone took it seriously,” wrote DeSantis campaign spokesperson Christina Pushaw.
“Yet it is published by Scientific American and promoted on social media platforms while real science is censored,” she added.
“This is exactly what ideological capture looks like and why being more intelligent isn’t a prophylactic against moral fashions,” wrote philosophy professor Peter Boghossian.
“Once venerable legacy institutions have become irredeemably corrupted. I see no way out of this other than building parallel institutions,” he added.
The issue comes as obesity continues to be encouraged by many on the left and in the entertainment industry, despite it being a condition that puts adults of any age at an increased risk of severe illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In October, entertainment giant Disney unveiled its first “plus-sized” heroine in a short film about an oversized ballet dancer dealing with “body dysmorphia.” The obese ballet dancer in the film marks the first time an overweight character is treated as the hero instead of as comic relief, or a villain.
In addition, many have found themselves being attacked for so-called “fat shaming.”
HBO comedian and talk show host Bill Maher has criticized the tendency to claim fat is “beautiful,” suggesting the government shame overweight people because they are a burden on the healthcare system, while expressing concern that “fat celebration” is oversimplifying the obesity epidemic.
“There’s a disturbing trend going on in America these days with rewriting science to fit ideology,” he wrote. “We’ve gone from fat acceptance to fat celebration.”
Earlier this year, Canadian psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Jordan Peterson sparked controversy after declaring that plus-size Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Yumi Nu — who joined the ranks of plus-size models Ashley Graham and Hunter McGrady — is “not beautiful.”
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