Issue of the day Call to ban ‘obesity’ as racist term

IS “obesity” a racist word? An American dietician believes it is and wants the term banished from conversation, replaced by “people in larger bodies”.

Obesity is ‘racist’?

Amanda Montgomery, a registered dietician at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health, believes “the focus on body size is rooted in racism”, outlining her views in her report titled, “Addressing weight stigma and fatphobia in public health”.

Specifically?

She says that, historically, extra weight signalled “wealth and prosperity” but over time “race scientists created a hierarchy of civilisation, placing white men on top and people of colour, specifically black people, at the bottom, considering them to be ‘less civilised’.” The health expert said “fatness and differing body characteristics” were then used to justify a lack of civilisation in a system that was maintained through the 19th and 20th centuries in the US to “justify slavery, racism and classism”.

And?

She believes it has perpetuated “desirability politics – where thinness and whiteness are given more access to social, political and cultural capital”. Ms Montgomery wants the term cancelled. She argues that “in the past decade, weight discrimination has increased by 66 per cent, and is one of the only forms of discrimination actively condoned by society. The term ‘obesity’ is extremely stigmatising. Instead, use terms such as ‘people in larger bodies.’”

It’s a big problem?

A new survey in the US found its citizens to be the most overweight in the western world with an estimated 40% of people – or 138 million – regarded as “obese”.

However?

Her paper comes at a time when the issue of “larger bodies” has been declared to be at “epidemic levels” in Europe. A report from the World Health Organization warns that the pandemic has intensified the situation, finding that 60% of adults and one third of children in Europe are overweight or obese.

What now?

Ms Montgomery suggests that rather than focusing on weight loss, healthcare should focus on helping people be healthy at any size, saying: “When we call for weight loss, we shift blame on to individuals and make health and weight a

‘personal responsibility,’ when often they are the result of uncontrollable genetic or environmental factors.”

What has the reaction been?

Online responses to the academic’s research include Twitter responses saying that “language and precision are being gutted for hurt feelings” and “at this rate, there will be very little words left.”