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Author Strings, Sabrina, author.

Title Fearing the black body : the racial origins of fat phobia / Sabrina Strings.

Publication Info. New York : New York University Press, [2019]

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Manchester, Main Library - Non Fiction  305.488 STRINGS    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  305.48 STR    DUE 04-02-24
 Rocky Hill, Cora J. Belden Library - Adult Department  305.4889 STRINGS    Check Shelf
Description vii, 283 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary "There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor black women are particularly stigmatized as "diseased" and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago. Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals--where fat bodies were once praised--showing that fat phobia, as it relates to black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of "savagery" and racial inferiority. The author argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. Indeed, it was not until the early twentieth century, when racialized attitudes against fatness were already entrenched in the culture, that the medical establishment began its crusade against obesity. An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn't about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice."--Amazon.com.
Contents Introduction : the original epidemic -- Being Venus -- Plump women and thin, fine men -- The rise of the big black woman -- Birth of the ascetic aesthetic -- American beauty : the reign of the slender aesthetic -- Thinness as American exceptionalism -- Good health to uplift the race -- Fat, revisited -- Epilogue : the obesity epidemic.
Subject Feminine beauty (Aesthetics) -- Social aspects -- United States.
African American women -- Social conditions.
Overweight women -- United States -- Social conditions.
Obesity -- Social aspects -- United States.
African American women -- Social conditions. (OCoLC)fst00799467
Obesity -- Social aspects. (OCoLC)fst01042759
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Obesity.
Black or African American.
Female.
Added Title Racial origins of fat phobia
ISBN 9781479886753 (paperback) (alkaline paper)
1479886750 (paperback) (alkaline paper)
9781479819805 (hardcover) (alkaline paper)
1479819808 (hardcover) (alkaline paper)
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