Dying to be thin: interview with Sabrina Strings

What is the link between fat phobia and racism? What role did slavery play? And where did all the ‘Rubenesque women’ go? An interview with Sabrina Strings, sociologist and a key inspiration for anyone who takes fat activism seriously.

Fearing The Black Body: The racial origins of fat phobia by Professor Sabrina Strings was the first book I read that explored the racial origins of fat phobia. From the age of 5, I have had to deal with people critiquing my weight, claiming I would be more beautiful once I had made the commitment to lose it. An experience most fat people can relate to. It seems that everyone feels the need to chime in on the presumed healthiness or un-healthiness of fat bodies. In the Belgian context, it is clear from public discourse or the lack thereof that there has not been as much progress as in the United States, for example, in the discourse around fat liberation and fat activism.

Suffice it to say, I was very excited once given the chance to speak with Sabrina Strings, chancellor’s fellow and associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine about where the mentality of thinness above everything stems from, its roots in the scientific shifts of the Enlightenment period, the role slavery and colonialism played in it, and the consequences for fat people today. ‘Racism is not something in the past, it is not something that only structured black people’s access to good paying jobs, racism was fundamental to the construction of modernity and impacted every sector of life from making a family, to getting a job, to getting healthcare, to getting access to education, there was not a single aspect of life that was not impacted by racism.’

Yes, even fatphobia is racist

The research Strings did for her book goes all the way back to the 18th century and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in particular to the notion that particular characteristics and behaviours could be ascribed to certain groups. This led to body type becoming one of the many mechanisms next to skin colour and hair type used to justify slavery. Although white feminist scholars had been analyzing how body type and race were featured in women's magazines, which is where Strings started her research, these studies never addressed how Africans/black people were represented: ‘They mostly spoke about the Irish, I remember thinking how weird that was. Why were they talking about the Irish? Of course it turns out there was a movement in the 19th century that labelled the Irish as hybrid white, meaning half black, that was my entry point for understanding the significance of anti-blackness in this trend’. Yet this link between race and aversion to fatness along the intersections of class, gender, and medicine seem to evade most when discussing fat phobia.

During the Renaissance curvaceous physiques were prized and voluptuous women were thought to be the epitome of beauty. This fell out of favour at some point but few spend a lot of time thinking about how or why.

‘I find it very curious, the manner in which a lot of people and especially white liberals choose to engage with racism, very superficially’ emphasised Strings when addressing the lack of an in-depth understanding of intersectionality despite its prevalent use in recent years. ‘They notice that during the Renaissance curvaceous physiques were prized and voluptuous women were thought to be the epitome of beauty and realise that this fell out of favour at some point but yet do not spend a lot of time thinking about how or why’. At the time, European scholars claimed that Africans were characteristically fat, and described them as sensuous people who enjoyed food and sex. ‘Race scientists who were making these claims certainly knew what they were doing. They were saying outright black people were constitutionally fat, which was not a good model of beauty for them as ‘Europeans’ so instead they promoted an aesthetic ideal that fit their roles and mores’. By the early 20th century, a lot of people were unaware that there was a connection between race science and fat phobia. ‘You can tell this by looking at the various missions, papers, magazines etc. in which white Europeans took slenderness as an ideal without understanding where it came from’.

Strings sheds further light on slenderness as an ideal by speaking about the birth of the ascetic aesthetic. ‘The voluptuous ideal when it was prized was thought to be a very sumptuous ideal, a celebration of life, as evidenced in the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens for example. People delighted in their bodies and the possibilities of enjoying food, enjoying life, but when rationality took hold as a result of Enlightenment, there grew greater scepticism of this type of enjoyment of the natural pleasures of being alive’. A way to discipline individuals by letting them live via scientific management principles became necessary. Striving to be their best selves would not be achieved by leisurely laying around eating as if in ancient Rome but through what Strings describes as a ‘principled stance towards food that honours both their scientific understanding of who they were as 'Europeans', and God, by showing temperance in the face of food just like they would show temperance in the face of drink’.

Importantly, religion plays a role in defining the 'European' in this period ‘some of the earliest protestant proselytisers who fought against overeating in England, in particular, were doing this in the 17th century and were doing it prior to the existence of race science. But, when race science took off and when there started to be a greater connection between whiteness, attractiveness and thinness, white women really got behind the slender ideal as proof of their protestant identity as well as proof of their racial superiority’.

It seems that everyone feels the need to chime in on the presumed healthiness or un-healthiness of fat bodies.

A vivid example of this racial superiority is Sarah Baartman’s life in Europe. One of the central figures in the book, Strings explains her decision to use an image of Baartman on the cover: ‘I chose that illustration because it speaks to the terror that blackness can evoke in the hearts of white folks. This is a real painting from the 19th century by French artist Sebastien Coeure painted in 1831 long after her death. It depicts what it would have been like to go to one of the exhibitions featuring Sarah. She would have been told to remain in a darkened enclosure as spectators filed in after which her handler would have told her to come out and charge the crowd’. Strings goes on to explain how these shows gave the crowd the spectacle they came for, an opportunity to feel rightfully afraid of black women. Even though slavery was a booming enterprise, the slaves were kept in the colonies. They did not usually make their way to London or Paris, so when audiences came to the shows they came precisely to be terrified. A show Sarah was forced to put on time and time again.

Strings takes the opportunity to point at one more important aspect to Sarah’s story: ‘another thing that was supposed to be frightening about Sarah was not just her race but her size. People claimed that she was three yards and three quarters round. Of course, we have no evidence that this was ever true and it’s not the point, the point was that they were making a connection between fatness and blackness and were using Sarah Baartman’s body to enliven their mythology’.

Resistance

Inspired by the time she spent with her grandmother watching television as a teen and her job at a HIV medication centre in San Francisco later in life, Strings pursued research into the link between racism and fat phobia. However, this would not be easy. On the one hand she was dissuaded by other academics who argued that this type of research had already been done by second wave feminists. On the other hand there were claims that her research was not academic and therefore of no scientific value. ‘There are certainly those people who understand the significance of this work and those who want to hear about it but there are still plenty of people who think that this is just some type of excuse and that people who are diligently working against fat phobia are making all this up. There is still a lot of resistance to actually engaging with the reality of the historical development of fat phobia and its relationship to racism’.

There is still a lot of resistance to actually engaging with the reality of the historical development of fat phobia and its relationship to racism.

Clearly, there is still this prevalent idea that black people are making yet another thing about race. ‘One of the things that is happening is certainly that people believe that racism is not important anymore or have this need to question black people’s legitimate claims of racism’, Strings states: ‘Racism was integral to the development and spread of capitalism, without colonisation and slavery we would not have the institutions that especially here, in the Western world, people hold so dear, because they were literally built on the backs of slaves. We cannot claim, at least here in the Western world, which was for a very long time and arguably still is a racial caste system, that race does not matter.’

Admittedly, there is still some push back to her research: ‘I did an hour long interview with a magazine recently and the woman interviewing me claimed to be very interested in my work, yet all that she kept saying was 'wait, I do not get it' or 'can you repeat that again, I do not get it' which had me repeating the same thing over and over. This was back in November of 2021 and the interview in question has not seen the light of day yet, which I find very interesting’, she explains.

What’s healthcare got to do with it?

One of the major consequences of these racist attitudes towards body size is BMI (Body Mass Index) therefore no conversation about fat phobia is complete without a discussion about it. ‘There is a long history of using what is known as the Quetelet Index created by a Belgian named Adolphe Quetelet, who was trying to come to an understanding of the distribution of weight across a population. That is a very different way of using the Quetelet Index than it has come to be used today’, Strings explains. It would later be misused in the 20th century, especially by Americans, to identify whether or not one individual has 'too much fat' on their body. ‘There is almost no evidence that this is a reasonable measure of the amount of adiposity one individual has, much less a reasonable measure of the relationship between adiposity and health and yet that is precisely how BMI is used’. As a result a tool that was verified and implemented in one domain is applied in a separate domain where it is causing harm.

The well documented reality of medical racism and fat phobia results in fat black people being less likely to visit the hospital when sick.

The effect on fat black people and fat people of colour in medicine has been well documented. ‘There are many different forms of bad science going on where BMI is concerned, what we are seeing is people producing various forms of publications that show a correlation between BMI and some health outcome and then claiming that BMI is driving that health outcome. I think this is scurrilous, I also think that these relationships are spurious and one of the things that is troubling is that it is very clear that we cannot infer causality where BMI is at issue, we simply cannot. Yet that is the way in which it is frequently talked about’. In fact, public health scholars are aware that things like stress, environmental racism, poverty, sexism, etc. are actually causing health disparities but they only focus on BMI because it is an easy form of scapegoating.

Strings: ‘Of course the ramifications for fat people is that when they go to the doctor, they will simply be told to lose weight. There are reports of fat people going to the doctor being told their health issues are because they are fat, only to later discover they have cancer. Which goes completely undetected because the main issue their doctor was concerned about was getting their BMI down.'

It is a well known phenomenon that black people in particular, living in the Western world avoid going to hospitals when ill. ‘As a black person, and this is true across size and across other identities that intersect with blackness existing in the Western world, you know when you show up in spaces in which there is not likely to be a lot of black people, e.g. the doctor’s office, you risk facing racial discrimination’. The well documented reality of medical racism added to the stigma they already face as fat patients results in fat black people, even in comparison to their non-fat black peers being less likely to visit the hospital when sick. ‘It is very important that we realise that when we talk about health outcomes for fat people we cannot pretend the poor healthcare they are receiving, or even their decision to opt out of medical care, is not a factor in the health outcomes that we are seeing’.

This was confirmed in the context of COVID-19 as some healthcare professionals fell back on long held beliefs about fat people ‘when the pandemic was declared there were so many researchers rushing to claim that it was fat people who were part of the problem, blaming their covid diagnosis on their weight. Fat people also became the reason that the virus was saturating the population’, Strings states. She continues: ‘I think that the very first response to covid on the part of researchers was fat phobic, I think some of them have drawn the language back and I think that others have tried to seek new avenues for justifying their original positions but I do not think that covid has gone in the direction of minimising fat stigma within the medical field’.

A plea for a more holistic approach

Similarly, studies along the intersection of gender, race and fatness is not as readily accessible as one might think ‘I haven’t come across any studies about fat, black men and that is absolutely necessary. Far more needs to be done to look at the relationship between black men and fatness’. However, there are a few very important works in this vain, ‘there is a book, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, by a black trans man named Da’Shaun Harrison. As a trans nonbinary person, Da’Shaun definitely takes up the relationship between fatness and masculinity from their perspective’. In their book Da’Shaun offers a fresh and precise exploration of anti-blackness and anti-fatness. They suffuse their analysis with insights on desirability politics, the connection between anti-fatness and the carceral system in the US, the limitations of gender and a myriad of other harms that fat black people face.

I haven’t come across any studies about fat, black men and these studies are absolutely necessary.

In conclusion, there are definitely more efficient ways to gauge a person’s health. ‘I think we should simply recognise that weight may or may not be a factor in any individual’s health. It is not a matter of whether or not they are within a ‘normal weight range’, there are so many things that show that a person can be in a ‘normal weight range’ but can carry weight around their abdomen and are more likely to be at a health risk than someone deemed ‘obese’. Even though we are well aware that body composition is very important in health outcomes people still keep talking about total weight’. We must also understand that there are other factors at play here ‘if we were to consider things like access to fruit and vegetables, whether people live in food deserts, whether they are in communities that experience food apartheid, if they have food security, whether they have child care such that they have the ability to actually prepare meals for their families, etc. we would be able to cultivate health with - in the individual as well their communities that is not reliant on fat phobia’.