January is usually filled with resolutions and goals, about weight loss, new beginnings and new challenges. January is less known, for also being Human Trafficking awareness month. In light of recent events that transpired at our nation’s capitol, I can’t help but discuss how diet culture, racism and human trafficking are all interconnected.  

Currently there are approximately 30.2 million people held in captivity, slavery or servitude. The year 2019, marked  400-years since the first African was taken from their home and brought to the United States to be sold into slavery.

 So, what does anti-diet, anti-racism, and anti- trafficking all have to do with one another? Body liberation. In a world free of white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and human trafficking, there wouldn’t be a need for anti-racism work.

If black and brown bodies weren’t feared, or if calculations like the B.M.I (body mass index) didn’t exist, would we really need the “Anti-diet” movement? The diet industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry which makes its profits off  false promises of shrinking your body, in hopes of being smaller, thus becoming more successful. 

Fat-phobia at its core is rooted in anti-blackness. Slavery and human trafficking are rooted in the purchase, selling and harm of bodies.  The majority of bodies that continue to be victimized, traumatized and sold for profit, are black and brown bodies. True body liberation and body autonomy is to exist in a world free from diet culture, racism, fat-phobia, transphobia and human trafficking.   

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whitneytrotter.com

Whitney Trotter is a Registered Dietitian, Nurse and Yoga Instructor. Whitney is committed to the work of body liberation and freedom of diet culture and the notion that shrinking your body equates to success.

Resources  

www.restorecorps.org  

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html#What_is_Human_Trafficking