Fearing the Black Body

Fearing the Black Body explores the deep-rooted history of how Black women's bodies have been racialized over the past 200 years, revealing that contemporary fat phobia is tied to racial and racialized prejudices rather than health concerns. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources, Sabrina Strings shows that societal perceptions of fatness have been used to reinforce notions of savagery and racial inferiority since the Enlightenment era. The book argues that the modern ideal of slenderness is inherently racialized and that medical debates about obesity have historically been intertwined with race, class, and gender biases.