Scientific American used to be about science. But that was a time long ago in an America that seems very far away these days.

The future is woke, and they want to lead us there. “Science” is no longer a method for gaining knowledge about the universe, it is a term used to bludgeon one’s ideological opponents. Any relation to the truth is simply coincidental.

The heightened concern about black women's weight reflects the racist stigmatization of their bodies. It also ignores how interrelated social factors impact black women’s health. https://t.co/sqVv8wpHyJ

— Scientific American (@sciam) December 28, 2022

For some reason SciAm tweeted out this link to a story they ran back in 2020 about the “Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity.” Apparently celebrating and encouraging the weight problems of Black women in America is so important that it bears repetition.

The absurdity of this article appearing in a formerly respectable science magazine–it has published Nobel Prizewinners and noted scientists for more than a century–is only matched by the fashion magazines which promote fat activists as fashion icons.

For some reason “fat acceptance” is really hot these days, and along with that comes fat denialism. You can be “healthy at any weight,” we are told. This is, apparently, what you discover when you “follow the science™”

Black people, and Black women in particular, face considerable health challenges. Compared with their rates in other racial groups, chronic cardiovascular, inflammatory and metabolic risk factors have been found to be elevated in Black women, even after controlling for behaviors such as smoking, physical exercise or dietary variables.

Black women have also been identified as the subgroup with the highest body mass index (BMI) in the U.S., with four out of five classified as either “overweight” or “obese.” Many doctors have claimed that Black women’s “excess” weight is the main cause of their poor health outcomes, often without fully testing or diagnosing them. While there has been a massive public health campaign urging fat people to eat right, eat less and lose weight, Black women have been specifically targeted.

Now I have a BMI which places me in the “obese” category, and a couple years back I fell into the “morbidly obese” realm. Neither my doctor nor I discussed how my being White and male impacted my metabolic health–we discussed the possibility of weight loss surgery because my weight is unhealthy. I chose not to undergo it, but so far I have succeeded in modest weight loss without trying too hard.

I really should try hard. In the immortal words of Danny Glover, “I’m getting too old for this sh!t”

But apparently Black women are different for some reason. Doctors pointing out that having high BMIs is a terrible thing leading to heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases is rooted in racism. Doctors, by focusing on weight loss as a health strategy, are ignoring how racism is what makes Black women among the least healthy demographics in the country.

This heightened concern about their weight is not new; it reflects the racist stigmatization of Black women’s bodies. Nearly three centuries ago scientists studying race argued that African women were especially likely to reach dimensions that the typical European might scorn. The men of Africa were said to like their women robust, and the European press featured tales of cultural events loosely described as festivals intended to fatten African women to the desired, “unwieldy” size.

In the eyes of many medical practitioners in the late 19th century, Black women were destined to die off along with the men of their race because of their presumed inability to control their “animal appetites”—eating, drinking and fornicating. These presumptions were not backed by scientific data but instead embodied the prevailing racial scientific logic at the time. Later, some doctors wanted to push Black men to reform their aesthetic preferences. Valorizing voluptuousness in Black women, these physicians claimed, validated their unhealthy diets, behaviors and figures.

Today the idea that weight is the main problem dogging Black women builds on these historically racist ideas and ignores how interrelated social factors impact Black women’s health. It also perpetuates a misinformed and damaging message about weight and health. Indeed, social determinants have been shown to be more consequential to health than BMI or health behaviors.

This argument is known by the highly technical term “bunk.”

While it may be historically true that cultural factors help explain Black female obesity, it is clearly false that obesity and health status are not directly correlated. They are for every other racial group, which is why my doctor was pushing me to lose weight. Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer are all correlated with being overweight, and no amount of ideologizing will change that fact.

Just as smoking cigarettes can cause cancer or excessive alcohol consumption can cause liver disease, excessive consumption of calories can kill you.

We’ve spent decades in the modelling industry normalizing eating disorders, white supremacy, appropriation and fetishization. Paying models less and less and not giving a shit about their mental or physical well-being. A beautiful fat woman isn’t the hill you wanna die on. https://t.co/0tyaSsyTpt

— Holy mackinaw so tender and mild (@prune__tracy) October 17, 2019

Fat acceptance is an evil being perpetrated upon the obese. Feeling depressed about being fat is self-destructive, but so is just accepting being fat. Being fat is a fatal disease, and everybody knows it. I know it, and I am fat. It certainly doesn’t do me or anyone else a favor to congratulate people for killing themselves.

'Super Sized Salon' star Jamie Lopez dead at 37 https://t.co/U1g4e7VfMd pic.twitter.com/ROInvcRw5l

— New York Post (@nypost) December 19, 2022

Stigmatizing being fat is no different than stigmatizing other self-destructive behavior, such as alcoholism. It serves no purpose to berate people for self-destructive behavior, and is cruel to do so. But supporting people in self-destructive behavior and calling it beautiful is even more destructive, because it encourages others to let themselves go. It is lying to people in order to spread the misery around.

Preventing obesity by emphasizing its destructive nature is better than the alternative, which is embracing it. Encouraging people to reverse obesity through encouragement is an act of love.

Embracing obesity? That is murderous. It is literally wishing an early death upon people.