The thread of social stigmatizing and racism has long woven through the fabrics of science and medicine. Sarah Baartman, an indigenous South African woman born in 1789, was subjected to profound cruelties, specifically associated with her body size and shape—placed at first in a cage alongside a rhinoceros, and later in circuses and so-called “freak-shows” throughout Europe under the name Hottentot Venus.
To this day, women experience weight discrimination at significantly higher rates than male peers.