Socialism 2026 Speaker Slams Diet Industry for 'Body Fascism

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Politics Desk

In Short: Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and author of "Therapy Nation," told Fox News Digital that Harrison's comments are a byproduct of ideology infiltrating everything. "There are fair criticisms of BMI and how it’s used.

Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and author of "Therapy Nation," told Fox News Digital that Harrison's comments are a byproduct of ideology infiltrating everything. "There are fair criticisms of BMI and how it’s used. But calling it ‘body fascism’ is what happens when ideology gets inserted into almost every part of life," Alpert said.

Harrison was one of three panelists—alongside podcast co-hosts Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant—who spoke during a session titled "Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State State." The panel examined how health, disability, body size, and race are instrumentalized by the state and reorganized under health fascism. "Abstaining from pleasure becomes a way to train obedience, to train self-denial, and to train discipline in service of a broader political order," Harrison explained.

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"Black fatness is made meaningful through suffering, through surveillance, and through control and the policing of Black fat flesh anchors entire systems of governance. Without a population to discipline, there would be no BMI, no obesity epidemic, and no medical or scientific institutions organized around managing fatness," Harrison said.
The four-day Socialism 2026 conference, held at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place and organized by Haymarket Books, brought together activists, organizers, and communities from across the country and around the world, featuring over a hundred participatory discussions, lectures, and workshops, according to the event's website.
"As governments retreat from care, and health increasingly becomes a signifier of discipline—rather than provision—fitness, disability, fatness, illness, Blackness, impairment, and bodily capacity are mobilized into measures of moral worth and political belonging. This panel examines how health, disability, body size, and race are instrumentalized by the state and being reorganized under health fascism," according to an event description.
"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. Every time there is a call for sovereignty by state powers with the intent to maintain borders, this is body fascism. Every time Black flesh is wrangled, dismembered, abused, this is body fascism. Understanding this clarifies exactly how fascist ideologies operate through the body, not only by glorifying a narrow ideal, but also by violently repressing the Black fat," Harrison added.
"Socialism may be an economic philosophy, but the culture surrounding this version of it goes much further. Personal problems become political problems, and individual responsibility gets pushed aside in favor of identifying the system or group supposedly responsible," he explained further.
An activist at the Socialism 2026 conference in Chicago slammed the "diet industry" for policing "Black fat flesh," characterizing modern health standards and weight management as forms of "body fascism".
He, too, has made the case for a federal tax credit.

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