Weight Stigma, Racism, and Healing Our Relationship with Bodies

20 Jul Weight Stigma, Racism, and Healing Our Relationship with Bodies

Naming the Harm: Why Weight and Race Belong in the Same Conversation

Many people come to therapy convinced their body is the problem. They blame their willpower, their eating, their lack of discipline. They describe avoiding medical appointments because they are tired of lectures about weight, feeling watched when they eat in public, and being told they would be treated better if they just tried harder. For Black clients, these experiences are often tangled with racism, comments about their hair or skin, and assumptions about where they are from.

What is often missed is that the shame they carry did not start inside them. It was learned in families, schools, social media, and health care. Weight stigma is discrimination or judgement based on body size. It shows up when people are:

• Treated as less competent at work because of their weight  
• Bullied or excluded at school  
• Given lower quality medical care or told all concerns are due to weight  
• Shamed by partners, family, or strangers for what and how they eat  

Weight stigma has deep roots in anti-Black racism and colonial ideas about who is disciplined, respectable, and worthy of care. It has never only been about health or personal choices. This matters for therapy and for everyday life, especially for people looking for counselling in Calgary and across Alberta who are dealing with both racism and body-based discrimination.

In this article, we want to:  

• Trace some of the history of how racism shaped weight stigma  
• Name the real impacts on mental, physical, and social health  
• Explore what meaningful allyship can look like, especially for white people and white therapists  

How Anti-Black Racism Shaped Modern Weight Stigma

Concerns about body size are often treated as timeless and universal. Historically, that is not accurate. Early white thinkers wrote about Black bodies as inferior, closer to animals, and lacking restraint. These racist ideas were used to justify slavery and colonization, and body size was part of that story.

Over time, thin white bodies became linked with being:

• Civilized  
• Moral and self-controlled  
• Intelligent and fit for leadership  

Larger bodies, especially Black bodies, were portrayed as:

• Undisciplined  
• Overly emotional or sensual  
• Less capable of rational thought  

These beliefs were tied to early diet culture and eugenics, which targeted racialized and immigrant communities. Efforts to control bodies through food, movement, and reproduction were rarely neutral health campaigns. They were about controlling which bodies were valued and which were blamed.

You can still see echoes of this when:

• Media portrays thin white bodies as the default love interest or professional  
• Medical research assumes that larger bodies equal poor health, without considering racism, stress, or access to care  
• Everyday comments stereotype Black people as eating in certain ways or being naturally built for specific sports or physical roles  

So when weight stigma shows up as concern about health, it often sits on top of long histories of white supremacy. That is why therapists who provide counselling in Calgary or anywhere else need to understand this background, especially when supporting Black clients and clients in larger bodies.

The Real Impacts on Mind, Body, and Daily Life

Weight stigma and racism do not just hurt feelings. They shape how people think, feel, and move through the world.

Psychologically, many clients describe:

• Chronic shame and self-criticism  
• Anxiety about being seen, photographed, or eating around others  
• Hypervigilance, constantly scanning for judgement or danger  

When someone has also experienced racial slurs, profiling, or exclusion, these experiences can blend with trauma symptoms. The message can become, “My body is not safe anywhere.” Over time, people may begin to believe that their worth, intelligence, and professionalism depend on shrinking their body or trying to appear closer to white beauty standards.

There are physical impacts too. Our bodies react to repeated discrimination with stress responses like fight, flight, or freeze. This can affect:

• Sleep and energy  
• Digestion and appetite  
• Pain, headaches, or tension  

In health care, weight stigma often means symptoms are blamed on size without proper assessment. Many people in larger bodies, especially Black people and people of colour, report:

• Delaying care because they expect to be judged  
• Being weighed and lectured before anyone asks about their actual concerns  
• Having serious issues dismissed or missed  

Health is shaped by many factors, including genetics, temperament, trauma histories, medication, food access, oppression, poverty, and exposure to racism or violence. Reducing it to “choice” or “discipline” ignores reality.

Socially, weight stigma and racism can strain:

• Dating and relationships, when partners repeat harmful comments or preferences  
• Family connections, when relatives constantly comment on weight, hair, or skin tone  
• Workplaces, where people in larger bodies or Black employees are subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) assumed to be less professional, less healthy, or less suited for leadership  

A common myth is that shaming people about their bodies will motivate them to get healthy. Research and client experiences show the opposite. Stigma is linked with more distress, more disordered eating, more avoidance of movement, and less access to supportive care. Compassion and respect change behaviour, not humiliation.

Why Black Voices Must Lead the Way

Black scholars, activists, and clinicians have been speaking about the links between racism and weight stigma for a very long time. Many of the ideas that have recently become popular in body liberation spaces grew out of Black community knowledge, even when white voices are the ones being credited.

Black communities have long traditions around:

• Food as culture, connection, and care  
• Movement as joy, resistance, and spiritual practice  
• Understanding the body in relation to ancestors, land, and community  

These knowledges have often been dismissed as unhealthy, exotic, or only interesting when they can be repackaged and sold.

Centring Black voices matters because it:

• Helps us understand how weight stigma operates differently across race, gender, class, and immigration status  
• Reduces the risk that white people or white-led institutions will “discover” ideas Black folks developed and then profit from them  
• Supports approaches to healing that reflect the real lives of Black clients, rather than forcing them into white norms  

In practice, this can look like:

• Citing and paying Black researchers, authors, and body liberation leaders  
• Supporting Black-led work around food justice, movement spaces, and mental health  
• In therapy, making explicit room for conversations about racial trauma, ancestral resilience, grief, and anger about living in a body that is targeted  

For us as a clinic, this kind of commitment means ongoing training, consultation, and reflection, not a one-time workshop. It means being willing to change our practices when we learn that we have missed something or caused harm.

Being White and Doing the Work: Everyday Allyship and Therapy

For white readers and white therapists, it can be uncomfortable to realise how much we have absorbed from a culture that glorifies thinness and whiteness. Guilt, shame, or defensiveness are common responses. They make sense, but they cannot be where we stop.

Everyday allyship can include:

• Noticing when we assume thinness equals health or competence, and pausing to question that  
• Challenging diet talk, racist jokes, and “concern” about other people’s bodies in families, friend groups, and workplaces  
• Paying attention to our media and professional training, and choosing sources that honour diverse bodies and cultures  

For therapists, there is another layer of responsibility. It can help to:

• Reflect on our own body stories and how they show up in the therapy room
• Avoid assuming we know why a client’s body looks the way it does, and consider genetics, temperament, stress sensitivity, trauma, medication, culture, and resources
• Create treatment plans that respect each person’s values and cultural context, instead of assuming that weight loss should be the goal
• Advocate for broader change in the systems clients move through, including health care, schools, workplaces, and community spaces, so that responsibility is not placed only on individuals to cope with harm. This can include challenging weight-biased policies, supporting anti-racist and weight-inclusive training, speaking up when institutions reinforce shame, and working toward environments where people of all body sizes and racial identities are treated with dignity, safety, and respect.

Allyship will always involve making mistakes. What matters is listening when we are called in or called out, repairing where we can, and staying committed to learning.

Moving Toward Healing and Support That Honour Your Whole Self

Weight stigma and racism are deeply connected. Their roots lie in histories that judged Black bodies as inferior, and their effects are still felt in health care, workplaces, relationships, and mental health. Shame about body size is never just an individual issue. It lives in systems, stories, and daily interactions.

Therapy can be one place to gently unpack these layers. Together, we can:

• Look at the stories you have been told about your body, race, and worth  
• Explore how your genetics, temperament, culture, and life experiences shape your relationship with food, movement, and self-image  
• Work on boundaries with people, institutions, or online spaces that keep repeating harmful messages  

For people seeking counselling in Calgary or online across Alberta, having space where your body, culture, and experiences of racism and weight stigma are all taken seriously can be part of healing. At Monarch Psychology, our Director offers a therapist matching call, where you can share your concerns, preferences around identity such as race, gender, or lived experience, and the kind of support you are hoping for. The goal is to help connect you with a psychologist or social worker who feels like a good fit for you, whether you are seeking individual, relationship, family, or child and youth support. Your wish for care that honours your whole context, including your body and the systems around you, is valid.

Take The First Step Toward Meaningful Support

If you are ready to help your child build coping skills and feel more secure, we are here to support you at Monarch Psychology. Learn how our counselling in Calgary can be tailored to your family’s needs in a compassionate, practical way. Reach out today to contact us and schedule a time to talk about what you and your child are experiencing.