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Most everyone in America, has or quite possibly will experience food shaming at some point in their lifetime. The experience might be intentional or accidental, but it is bound to happen because we often violate people’s social, cultural, and racial boundaries without giving it a second thought. Sadly, many young people will experience this level of embarrassment early in life and most often it will be inflicted by a relative, a friend, or an authority figure. Many of us who came of age during the Presidential Fitness Test will recall both the horror and shame of being labeled unfit and unhealthy because we could not climb the dreaded rope in less than a minute or perform the flex-arm hang for more than two seconds. Imagine going from having been embarrassed in gym class by the lack of ability to perform military-style exercises to then being told you are overweight and will die soon from obesity. Or imagine leaving gym class and heading to lunch where your “friends” criticize your rice, egusi, and goat sauce or sambusas, or other foods with different aromas and smells. The horror. While food shaming alone is commonplace, its more insidious version is undergirded by racial ideologies and beliefs that often lead us to dismiss and even demonize the cultural practices of those unlike ourselves and most often this includes the food habits and behaviors of Black, Indigenous, Latina/o, and Asian Americans.
Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America calls attention to these instances and points out how racial animus and disdain toward Black people in America often underlies this behavior. The problem is exacerbated when one racial group assumes itself to be the norm, so our public and social policies are crafted in ways that privilege this group’s norms over all others. Nowhere is this more apparent than in tying food cultures and food consumption to body shape and size. There are countless studies attesting to obesity as one of most prevalent diseases in the United States. However, for some time now, there has been an equally large number of studies that argue for a consideration of the ways that our Body Mass Index (BMI), which measures body fat based on height and weight needs to be considered for its variation among racial and ethnic groups. Yet the average person does not understand the complexities of obesity and thus tends to rely upon visual evidence alone thinking that all larger people are unhealthy and all smaller people are not. Most people seem not to realize that even those who are smaller and appear to have a “normal” BMI can have high percentages of body fat and a low amount of muscle. Unbeknownst to the observer, diabetes and hypertension can and do affect even those who “look” healthy.
Sadly, from academic discourse to popular culture, the BMI of Black people who are on the heavier side is assumed to be out of control because it does not conform to European standards of beauty, (think about all of the ridiculous criticism and negativity heaped upon musical artist Lizzo). And to this end, the foods consumed by Black people tend to be vilified as the culprit for bodies that appear to be obese. This is so much the case that many of us go to dangerous lengths to lose weight and/or to insist that we eat healthy diets, even when these trends are not necessarily good for our body types. But, the truth of the matter is that there are any number of reasons that people’s bodies have extra weight — from genetics and body makeup, to medication consumption, pregnancy, and yes, overeating and lack of exercise. For many people of color there is also the daily stress of living with race and class aggressions, including lack of generational wealth, traumas from gun and police violence, and so many other factors that it is much too convenient to place the lion’s share of the blame for the appearance of people’s varying larger body shapes on eating alone.
It’s all quite sad, really. America was founded on the ethereal concept of freedom and liberty. But far too often we find that others want to define what these ideas mean for us. One would think thhat adults would help young people to appreciate rather than ridicule social, cultural, physical, and sexual differences. And nowhere is more the case than in schools and institutions of learning. Modeling is especially important because young people are learning how to comport themselves in the world; in middle and high schools, they’re learning who they are or will be in this life. Shaming and humiliating others using food — especially children — should never be okay. Having one’s food cultures and body shamed by an adult can also make it difficult for a young person to feel comfortable confiding in their authority figures at a time when they often most need to do so. Not only can such actions have deleterious effects leading to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and much worse. But also, it is just not a good way to be a human.
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