ARTICLE

Why Did Weight Become the Scapegoat for Health Issues?: A Q&A with Sabrina Strings, PhD

By Sabrina Strings — 2020

When the associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine examined current assumptions around body fat, she found them to be overly simplistic and lacking in evidence. For example, there are numerous examples of what the medical establishment calls overweight or obesity being associated with better health outcomes compared to underweight or normal weight. And an examination of 17 million health records revealed that the increased risk of dying from COVID-19 among Black people is not explained by obesity or diabetes. In her book, Fearing the Black Body, Strings shows how slavery and racism have shaped common views of body fat and its health consequences. Her work underscores why it’s imperative that poor health outcomes are traced to their structural and social roots and not blamed on individual choices.

Read on goop.com

FindCenter Post-Image

Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare

This groundbreaking and highly acclaimed work examines the two most influential African-American leaders of this century. While Martin Luther King, Jr., saw America as essentially a dream . . . as yet unfulfilled, Malcolm X viewed America as a realized nightmare.

2

FindCenter Post-Image

Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger

White supremacy in the United States has long necessitated that Black rage be suppressed, repressed, or denied, often as a means of survival, a literal matter of life and death.

3

FindCenter Post-Image

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song

In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

FindCenter Post-Image

We Went to a Support Group for Black People in America

Alzo Slade participates in an “Emotional Emancipation Circle,” an Afrocentric support group created by the Community Healing Network and the Association of Black Psychologists. It’s a safe space for Black people to share personal experiences with racism and to process racial trauma.

1

FindCenter Post-Image

Changing Views on Mental Health in the Black Community | Chante Meadows | TEDxKingLincolnBronzeville

Why don’t we make our mental health as important as our physical health? Unfortunately, because of mental health stigma. How we view mental health keeps people from ever seeking proper treatment.

FindCenter Post-Image

Black Healing in White Space | Sacha Armstrong-Crockett | TEDxHartford

Being an African-American growing up in a white neighborhood can be challenging. Trying to keep your identity yet navigate in a different place. It can be a challenging balance to try to adapt to different cultures, styles, and communities.

1

FindCenter Post-Image

For My People

Looks at the history of Black theology, discusses its relationship to white and liberation theology, and identifies new directions for Black churches to take in the eighties.

FindCenter Post-Image

God of the Oppressed

A landmark in the development of Black Theology and the first effort to present a systematic theology drawing fully on the resources of African-American religion and culture.

FindCenter Post-Image

The Search for Common Ground

Howard Thurman writes about building community. He calls us at once to affirm our own identity, but also to look beyond that identity to that which we have in common with all of life.

FindCenter Post-Image

Collective Trauma and the Stress of Racism

The stress of ongoing, systemic racism is mentally and physically traumatizing Black individuals and their communities.

1
2
3
...
5
Next

EXPLORE TOPIC

Racism