Socialism 2026 speaker slams diet industry for policing 'Black fat flesh,' calls it 'body fascism'
Activist Criticizes Diet Industry at Socialism Conference in Chicago
CHICAGO – At a four‑day gathering of activists and scholars held this week at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, a speaker from the Socialism 2026 conference accused the diet industry of policing “Black fat flesh” and described contemporary weight‑management practices as a form of “body fascism.”
The conference, organized by Haymarket Books, drew more than 200 participants to its “Health Fascism” series, which explored how health, race, and body size are used as instruments of control by state and corporate actors. The series included over a hundred talks, workshops, and participatory sessions from activists across the country and abroad.
During the Saturday session titled “Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti‑State State,” author Da’Shaun L. Harrison joined podcast hosts Beatrice Adler‑Bolton and Artie Vierkant on a panel that examined the intersection of diet culture, medical science, and racial politics. Harrison said, “Black fatness is made meaningful through suffering, through surveillance, and through control, and the policing of Black fat flesh anchors entire systems of governance.” He added that without a population to discipline, “there would be no BMI, no obesity epidemic, and no medical or scientific institutions organized around managing fatness.”
Harrison characterized the diet industry as a tool that “monitors, restricts, guiltes, steals from, and punishes fat people,” noting that food is linked to morality through language such as “guilty pleasure.” He argued that abstaining from pleasure serves as a method of training obedience, self‑denial, and discipline for a larger political agenda. “Body fascism is not some relic of the past. It’s an active feature of modern imperial regimes,” he said.
The speaker also critiqued GLP‑1 weight‑loss medications such as Ozempic, claiming that treating fatness as a public‑health problem is intrinsically tied to racial control. “Every time a government decides whose body must be protected and whose bodies must be erased for the sake of national imagery, this is body fascism,” he asserted. “Every time Black flesh is wrangled, dismembered, abused, this is body fascism.”
Commentary on the panel came from psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, author of Therapy Nation. Alpert told Fox News Digital that Harrison’s remarks illustrate how ideology can permeate everyday discussions. “There are fair criticisms of BMI and how it’s used,” Alpert said. “But calling it ‘body fascism’ is what happens when ideology gets inserted into almost every part of life.” He cautioned that framing medical advice as oppression can deter people from seeking needed care.
The conference’s event description framed the topic as a broader examination of how “fitness, disability, fatness, illness, Blackness, impairment, and bodily capacity are mobilized into measures of moral worth and political belonging.” Clips from the conference were shared on the social‑media platform X by investigative analyst Stu Smith.
Neither Harrison nor other panel representatives responded to requests for comment. The Socialism 2026 conference will continue through its final day, featuring additional discussions on the role of health in contemporary politics.
