Unpacking Our Society's Thinness Obsession

Why did our society become obsessed with thinness?  Recently I have been getting this question more and more.

When I hear this question- I feel so grateful that people are asking it.

It means that we are thinking about the status quo.

It means that we are not rolling along without questioning- how did this happen?

Why are we all striving to achieve this state that for so many requires so much work? It also, for the most part, does not support our survival as a species.

Being “impossibly thin” does not help with fertility, health, or longevity of life.

So why? Why is our mantra the thinner the better?

The other question I hear is; when did this preoccupation with thinness happen? There was a time when curves were considered the standard of beauty. Prior to the 1800’s a fuller figure represented ample privilege, wealth, and status. So what changed the tide?

How did our standards of beauty do a 180, and thin became the ultimate measure of wealth, privilege, discipline, and status?

The answer is surprising to many. The two things that elevated our preoccupation with thin were: Religion and Race. So Part One includes a bit of a history lesson.

Two significant events shifted the view of the human body; the advent of the slave trade and the era of The Great Reformation.

Sabrina Strings, author of the incredible book, Fearing the Black Body; the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, encapsulates, “Two critical historical developments contributed to a fetish for svelte and a phobia about fatness: the rise of the transatlantic slave trade and the spread of Protestantism. Racial scientific rhetoric about slavery linked fatness to “greedy” Africans. And the religious discourse suggested that overeating was ungodly.” 

A physical distinction was created between White and Black and Christianity and Other. Thin or Fat. Fatness represented Blackness and Ungodliness, Thinness became synonymous with Whiteness and Morality.

Thin and Fat became defining adjectives that communicated better, worse, godly, ungodly, greedy, and pious. Christy Harrisons’s book, The Anti-Diet (another incredible read), further summarizes the importance of post-colonial whiteness.

In order to differentiate themselves from the Indigenous people of this country, and all other non-white immigrant countries, English settlers refused to eat the local food and linked their white, smaller bodies to superiority and enhanced evolutionary development. 

So let’s take a moment to let that sink in.

Take in that the preference for thin came from the need to create a social hierarchy and to help solidify a classist, society based on religion and race. 

It is no surprise that race and religion, two of the most divisive and explosive elements in our world, are at the heart of something that causes so much anguish, shame, and self-harm.

But my deepest belief is that with awareness, we can heal. How do we do that? That will be Part 2….🙏🏼 ❤️‍🩹