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Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
49 reviews
caelinsullivan's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Antisemitism, and Colonisation
tracey1981's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Some very interesting info here that makes a strong case for fatphobia being rooted in racism, but it wasn’t written in a way I found particularly compelling. I wanted more analysis, more narrative, or a little more of both.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, and Racism
amandadevoursbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
In Fearing the Black Body, Sabrina Strings meticulously examines the history of white Western thought around race, body weight and health, and societal standards of beauty. It was a fascinating read. The depths of how eugenics shaped modern US/European society are horrifying, and this book pulls the threads cleanly out for the reader to examine the impact. Well worth the read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Xenophobia, and Colonisation
phdyke's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia and Racism
astralfeline's review against another edition
Very dense book with a lot of information. Listened to the audiobook and the narrator wasn't very engaging to listen to so it was hard to get through. What I did read was very interesting and I do want to pick it up again eventually maybe when I have a physical/ebook copy to annotate.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia and Racism
snipinfool's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
This book explored how fat phobia was rooted in racism. Sabrina Strings guided the reader throughout history with examples in art and medicine to show how larger bodies, initially seen as a positive attribute, slowly became a negative aspect that was often tied to race. The concept of race was a social construct that came about slowly after the late 1500's. Used to categorize people according to common characteristics, white Europeans used it to create a hierarchy of races in which they placed themselves at the top. Body size was one way whites would use to distance themselves from the non-white races. People who were thin or slim were seen as intelligent, motivated, hard working, and having other positive attributes. People who were fat were negatively thought to be lazy, slovenly, and less intelligent. Women were most often targeted for size and weight. White women in Europe and in America often tried to be as thin as possible to distance themselves from those they saw as undesirable. The medical community did not enter into the discussion of weight and body size until the early 1900's when discussion began around obesity.
This was an interesting read. The writing was very academic, and I often read it in short bursts to reflect on what I read. It frequently made me angry and frustrated. Those who were seen as the "experts" always chose someone who looked them in color and size as being the best. They were able to create a following, and their thoughts became accepted as the truth when there were no facts to back up their beliefs. It was all opinion. Doctors and the medical community entered the discussion long after people had decided that fat people, especially those who were non-white, were unacceptable. Ms. Strings did a good job of covering an extensive timeline to show how body size in relation to race and gender changed over time. We forget that what is accepted as true are not always tested findings. I am glad my daughter asked me to buddy read this with her.
This was an interesting read. The writing was very academic, and I often read it in short bursts to reflect on what I read. It frequently made me angry and frustrated. Those who were seen as the "experts" always chose someone who looked them in color and size as being the best. They were able to create a following, and their thoughts became accepted as the truth when there were no facts to back up their beliefs. It was all opinion. Doctors and the medical community entered the discussion long after people had decided that fat people, especially those who were non-white, were unacceptable. Ms. Strings did a good job of covering an extensive timeline to show how body size in relation to race and gender changed over time. We forget that what is accepted as true are not always tested findings. I am glad my daughter asked me to buddy read this with her.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Racism
Moderate: Eating disorder, Misogyny, and Slavery
Minor: Ableism and Sexism
eslsilver's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Medical trauma
taratearex's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This was excellent and infuriating. This is a concise history of fat phobia, laying out very clearly how it originated from racism. It also lays out how connected to religion it is, as well as just how manufactured by white women and white men it is and continues to be. It's infuriating to see how little has changed and how we continue to repeat history over and over.
This book is dense and does read somewhat like a history textbook, but it is also clear and concise and lays out the facts so well in only about 200 pages. Because it is more a presentation of the facts, there isn't much analysis so I would recommend reading this in addition to other books on anti-fat bias and racism for more of the analysis part, such as What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat Aubrey Gordon and Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness Da’Shaun Harrison. But this was an excellent book on the history of how we got to where we are now and well worth the read.
I listened to the audiobook in tandem with my physical copy so that I could highlight, this was also helpful as there are a lot of names and dates which I have a harder time with if it's just audiobook.
This book is dense and does read somewhat like a history textbook, but it is also clear and concise and lays out the facts so well in only about 200 pages. Because it is more a presentation of the facts, there isn't much analysis so I would recommend reading this in addition to other books on anti-fat bias and racism for more of the analysis part, such as What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat Aubrey Gordon and Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness Da’Shaun Harrison. But this was an excellent book on the history of how we got to where we are now and well worth the read.
I listened to the audiobook in tandem with my physical copy so that I could highlight, this was also helpful as there are a lot of names and dates which I have a harder time with if it's just audiobook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Racism
Moderate: Ableism, Misogyny, Sexism, and Slavery
leontyna's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.0
It was very informative but I would have appreciated some summaries of the chapters, at times I was a bit lost what the point of particular stories/chapter was besides "people changed their mind all the time about what is dangerous, thinness or fatness, and anti-fatness has definitive racial origins". But I'm really glad I listened to the book and I plan to read more about the topic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Racism, and Slavery
Moderate: Misogyny and Antisemitism
kpeps's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This book was a great intersectional analysis on the role racism and white supremacy played in creating and emphasizing the fat-phobia is modern society. There is so much information in this text that you can’t help but learn something every chapter, yet it’s colloquial enough to understand and entertain.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Medical content, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Fatphobia, Infertility, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, and Classism
Minor: Eating disorder and Pandemic/Epidemic