SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Racist To Notice Black Female Obesity Epidemic; Also Racist To Prescribe Healthy Lifestyle Choices
01/09/2023
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To notice black women are overwhelmingly obese is racist (and fighting body positivity).

To argue black women should not be obese, and instead seek a healthy lifestyle to ensure a better quality of life, is equally if not more racist.

The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity: Prescribing weight loss to Black women ignores barriers to their health, by Sabrina Strings, Lindo Bacon, Scientific American, December 28, 2022

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.” 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. This heightened concern about their weight is not new; it reflects the racist stigmatization of Black women’s bodies. Today the idea that weight is the main problem dogging Black women builds on these historically racist ideas and ignores how interrelated social factors impact Black women’s health. . Indeed, social determinants have been shown to be more consequential to health than BMI or health behaviors. many studies show that the stigma associated with body weight, rather than the body weight itself, is responsible for some adverse health consequences blamed on obesity.

Regardless of income, Black women consistently experience weightism in addition to sexism and racism. From workplace discrimination and poor service at restaurants to rude or objectifying commentary online, the stress of these life experiences contributes to higher rates of chronic mental and physical illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, depression and anxiety. 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. The most effective and ethical approaches for improving health should aim to change the conditions of Black women’s lives: tackling racism, sexism and weightism and providing opportunity for individuals to thrive.

“Weight stigma.”

Tackling racism is a better method for controlling black women’s obesity epidemic, instead of encouraging counting calories, staying away from high-fructose corn-syrup, and working out/doing cardio.

But then again, exercise and physical fitness have white supremacist roots in the United States

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