Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia

Illuminating and infuriating. 
The timeline alone says it all, when it comes to what chronologically promoted fat phobia: 
First racism seen in art and ‘science' justifying colonialism and slavery, then religious ascetic morality further promoting racism and controlling women, and THEN unsubstantiated claims about health associated with insurance companies to help medical industries and doctor reputations  alongside eugenic concerns, condemning and fearing minorities and working to promote a supremacist idea of white women as mothers first. 
The author shows how in addition to the black body, it becomes very clear that convenient narratives that championed white supremacy and a slender white aesthetic also sought to other, denigrate, harm with impunity, all people of colour as well as Jewish people, Southern and Eastern European immigrants to the US, and anyone of a ‘lower class', and simultaneously judge and control women. 
Racism and fatphobia have often been the tool of commerce and the reigning social class when the white ‘upper class' find it an expedient way to keep themselves on top. 
I'll admit the seeming constant back and forth on women being ‘too skinny, too fat' in Kellogg's day felt a bit muddled in providing evidence for the book's argument.
The Fat, Revisited chapter and Obesity Epidemic epilogue felt a bit breathless, but I think that's a personal perspective based on reading a number of books on aspects of what is covered in those pages - the recent issues with the medical industry and BMI and conceptions of obesity - it's a lot to try and summarize in a chapter or two. 
It doesn't take away from Strings' well-supported report on all the ways that minorities, in particular, Black women, have been designated the undesirable Other through skin colour, body shape, features, size and weight, based on specious, spurious arguments, how they have been condemned to further a white agenda, even as it simultaneously worked to discipline white women, even in situations where white women are doing it to other white women or themselves.  
Negative result for all! 🤦🏼‍♂️

Sidebar: 
Y'know it was mildly funny when I found out a few years ago that Kellogg cereal guy was anti-masturbation, but finding out he was a pro-eugenics, white supremacist writing racist pseudo-medical screeds is just exhausting. 

⚠️racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, sexism, fatphobia, disordered eating