Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society18 Helmi 2025

The Dark History of BMI & Fatphobia

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.

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