Episode 99 - People of Size

Amber and Anna explore perceptions of human body shape in different times and places. What’s the difference between fatness and obesity? Why should we look askance at BMI? What is up with Peter Paul Rubens and his damp, shiny nudes? And more!

To learn more, check out:

The Bizarre and Racist History of the BMI (Medium’s Elemental)

A History of Obesity, or How What Was Good Became Ugly and Then Bad (Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease)

The evolution of human fatness and susceptibility to obesity: an ethological approach (Biological Reviews) 

A Brief History of Obesity: Truths and Illusions (Clinical Oncology News)

Obesity in the paleolithic era (Hormones)

Obesity in the Neolithic Era: A Greek Female Figurine (Obesity Surgery)

The significance of Sarah Baartman (BBC)

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (via Worldcat)

Socio-cultural norms of body size in Westerners and Polynesians affect heart rate variability and emotion during social interactions (Culture and Brain)

How paradise became the fattest place in the world (CNN)

How a Powerful Obesity Gene Helped Samoans Conquer the South Pacific (Gizmodo)

A thrifty variant in CREBRF strongly influences body mass index in Samoans (Nature Genetics)

“Un-Hottentoting the Queen of Punt” (via Academia.edu)

The Expedition to Punt (Nova)

Queen of Punt (Clinical Infectious Diseases)

When Fat Was in Fashion (New York Times)

Photo credit: Sketch of Queen Ety of Punt from George Rawlinson’s 1886 Ancient Egypt. Public domain image.