Anti-Fat Bias and Weight Discrimination–is this Racist?

Podcast Transcript: 

Hi, so today we are going to talk a little bit about anti-fat bias and weight-discrimination and whether or not that is racist. So, we’re first going to start off talking about a French naturalist named George Louis Lectere, and he was a...the first scientist to note Black people as “plump, idle, and insipid”. So, he argued that external characteristics were physical markers of distinction between different types ..types” of people…”types” in quotes..um, so basically, he viewed white people as being on top of this hierarchy that he saw in his head um, and we see there that that is very clearly um kinda showing a link between racism and anti—fatnessAnd that is kinda perpetuated by Ancel Keys after World War II with his creation of BMI. So, Ancel keys is a statistician who created this very unethical study. I won’t get into it too much, but ultimately what developed was the creation of BMI which um, I am sure you all are familiar with. Um, a measurement of body fat index, um supposedly. Um, but it really is not a great tool and again Ancel was a statistician, not a doctor, so there’s a lot of problems there as well. So, moving on from that, we’re gonna kinda talk about practical barriers that fat people face when accessing medical care. So, there is of course plenty of these, but there’s a few important ones to note are:  

  • not having health concerns taken seriously,  
  • um..having anything that is going wrong, any problem that they haveblamed on weight 
  • Um, doctors making assumptions around activity levels and around eating 
  • And, disregard for conditions that may contribute to weight gain 
  • undiagnosed eating disorders 

Um, I think this is something that is becoming more and more of an issue or people are maybe becoming more aware of it as an issue. Um, this was my personal experience as well. So even, just being someone who doesn’t fit the perfect stereotype as..of a person with an eating disorder, mine went undiagnosed for a very long time so, this is really common that doctors just overlook diagnosis because of you know, whatever they look at with physical stereotypes. Um, and so anti-fat bias absolutely comes into play in medical practice—and I think people assume that it doesn’t. 

Um, so next we are going to talk about Black..Barrier’s that face Black People and some of those are going to overlap—probably most of them, actually will overlap.  

So, there’s gonna be difficulty accessing culturally competent doctors. So, I mean not to say their can’t be a white doctor who is culturally competent, um but most people are going to be more comfortable with a doctor they feel is going to be able to respect them and to understand them and there are a lot of white doctors who maybe are not going to be able to do that [due to white privilege] and who have be discriminatory in the past, who have you know, said something that was, you know, a microaggression. And so that hesitancy with the medical profession is already there for a lot of Black people and so a lot of people are going to be more comfortable with someone they feel more comfortable with. Um, and so, already having that limited access is going to make that process more difficult. Plus, then you’ve got insurance and transportation barriers um, and so there’s a lot of things that make taking the first step and finding a docor very difficult.  

Then, once you get in the door, you know, there’s issues with people not having their pain levels taken seriously and maybe even disregarded altogether uh, I think this is especially and issues in Black women. It’s really an issue where Black women are kinda viewed as very strong and independent and powerful and somehow that means they are void of having any pain and um, obviously that is not true, so when using something like a pain scale, it be really inaccurate or not taken seriously by doctors. Doctors can Fail to meet cultural needsUm, and again, make vast assumptions about diet and exercise 

So, now we are gonna talk about The Conflict Between Thick and Fat which was published by Da’Shaun Harrison. And so, this basically talks about thickness and not fatness. So, thick, is used as a compliment while still denying fat people um, as a societycommunity, housing, employment. And, so basically this is a part of desirability politics and within this, language is a huge component of thatSo fat people, have kinda as a whole have been conditioned to prefer terms like thick, big, and big-boned because so often fat is used in a very weaponized manner and you know so, even fat people are hesitant to use it. And some people are very comfortable with it and some people are not and so it’s sorta in flux for a lot of people.  

And so, then we’re gonna move on to Not all Fat Black Boys Know How to EatSo this is kind of a personal experience for  Da’Shaun and their visit to a doctor as a fat Black child. And so they recalled the doctor questioning them about what they ate, when they ate, why they wouldn’t eat. And they recall having rejected eating because they feared getting fatter and the doctor responded–”Well, if you don’t eat, your body will assume that you’re starving itself and will make you gain more weight. And while this may have some truth to it, it is really a problematic statement. It doesn’t really help you move beyond the fear of getting fat. It just kinda convinces you to eat to protect yourself from getting fat. Um, I was actually told this same thing in an eating disorder treatment center and um, at the time I was like “wow, this is very helpful for me”, but now looking back I am like that is so Not helpful. Soyeah, and then he (the doctorwas told that they could not eat like an apple because that was too small and that a salad would be too much because they’d use too much dressing and eating pizza would be too shameful to eat in front of anyone. And, they were even diagnosed with a gastro-intestinal disorder. And even that..with that, they were still criticized for their body and their weight.  

And then we move on to the next article which is Within a White Supremacist System Eric Garner’s True Crime was Being Fat and this was by Sherronda Brown. This talks about David Pantaleo and he murdered Eric Garner but ultimately was only fired—was not prosecuted for the crime. And, there were several who surrounded the case, including an NYPD Union Lawyer who is quoted as saying “he was (meaning Eric Garner) a ticking time bomb who resisted arrest. If he was put in a bear hug, it would have been the same outcome” and what was this outcome? That Eric Garner, and this is what his autopsy showed, had a fatal asthma attack which led to cardiac arrest. And so, basically Eric Garner’s weight, and his race were used against him and as the reason that he died, when realistically the reason that he died was the NY police department and this officer as well as the officers that stood around and watched and claimed that they didn’t interfere because they thought that he was “playing possum” and Representative from New York Peter King said that “If I had not had…If he had not had asthma and a heart condition and was so obese, almost definitely he would not have died from this”. You see we’ve got a lot of people who have no idea, who no medical experience or education, making a lot of very bold assumptions about Eric Garner and his experience and his health and his body that they have no grounds to make and how that this kinda really shows how linked race and fatness are and it’s not just in the case of Eric Garner, but in general in our society. They are linked both in a really broad way, and in very individual circumstances. And um, to kinda summarize, anti-fatness and anti-blackness is inherent. Both are used to dehumanize Black people. Both are used to link fatness and laziness, immorality, and low mental health status, and both are incarnations of white supremacy and eugenics.  

And that’s all I have– 

Thank you. 

  

References 

Brown, S. J. (2019, June 17). Within a White Supremacist System, Eric Garner’s True Crime Was Being Fat. Wear Your Voice. https://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/eric-garner-fatphobia/. 

Harrison, D. (2020, June 30). Not All Fat Black Boys Know How To Eat. Wear Your Voice. https://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/not-all-fat-black-boys-know-how-to-eat/. 

Harrison, D. (2018, June 30). The Conflict Between Thick and Fat – Da’Shaun L. HarrisonDa’Shaun L. Harrison. https://dashaunharrison.com/the-conflict-between-thick-and-fat/.

 

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