The Dark History of BMI & Fatphobia

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dark ideas and stigma around different body sizes really took hold in the Enlightenment.

Very unenlightened, if you ask us.

This started all sorts of awful movements, and one result was BMI - or Body Mass Index - which is still used as a measure of health by doctors today.

What even is the BMI? Why are women and people of colour particularly affected by these harmful ideas? And what's the future of fatphobia and BMI?

Joining Kate is the fantastic Amy Farrell, professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Dickinson College and author of Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture, to take us back to the dark origins of BMI and fatphobia.

This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm your host, Kate Lister.
0:02.4	If you would like betwixt the sheets, add free and get early access, sign up to History Hit.
0:08.7	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters.
0:16.0	And enjoy a new release every single week.
0:19.8	Sign up now by visiting History hit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:24.5	Hello, my lovely betwixters.
0:26.5	It's me, Kate Lister.
0:28.2	How are you?
0:29.4	Well, I'm fabulous.
0:30.4	Thank you very much for asking.
0:31.8	And I'm thrilled that you can join me for yet another episode of betwixt the sheets.
0:35.7	But before I can continue, and before you can continue,
0:38.8	I have to tell you, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults,
0:41.8	to other adults about adulty things and an adulty way covering a range of adults subject,
0:44.4	and you should be an adult too.
0:45.5	And we have to tell you that, not because we desperately want to,
0:48.5	but because the lawyers will tell us off if we don't.
0:50.7	That is the fair do's warning.
0:52.9	Feel safer? I do. Right, on with the show.
1:01.2	Despite being a period called The Enlightenment, they didn't half have some unenlightened ideas,
1:06.7	and that is putting it mildly. With the transatlantic slave trade in full swing,
1:12.6	racial hierarchies were reinforced with insane ideas
	...

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