Queen Latifah has always projected undeniable self-confidence, but like a lot of people, she’s had her struggles with her body image. She opened up about the realities of having a fuller body type on the Red Table Talk, shedding light on weight bias and the harmful stigma surrounding obesity.
Latifah revealed that she never saw herself as obese until she worked with celebrity trainer Jeanette Jenkins. Jenkins told her that “scientifically,” she was in that category.
“She’s showing me different body types, and she’s like, ‘this is what your BMI is, this is what your weight is, and you fall into this category of obesity,'” she said during the Red Table Talk episode. “I was mad at that. It pissed me off. I was like, ‘What? Me?’ I mean, I’m just thick. She said you are 30% over where you should be. And I’m like, ‘Obesity?'”
“I was like nah, because I didn’t see myself that way,” she added. “And that’s the problem, and that’s why I’m here, because that word brings a connotation with it, and the connotation is the problem.”
The 52-year-old continued, saying that the negative connotation around obesity prevents people from understanding what causes obesity. Now, Latifah, who’s joined forces with It’s Bigger Than Me, is working towards changing the narrative surrounding obesity.
“For me, it’s not about a weight thing, it’s about health at the end of the day,” she said. “I know a lot of people who are actually quite thin and are not healthy.”
Latifah, along with the hosts of Red Table Talk, also addressed how the Black community and eurocentric beauty standards complicate Black people’s relationship with their bodies.
“And the end of the day you want people to feel good about who they are, but if it’s always coming through a lens of someone else, that’s not healthy,” Latifah said.
The 52-year-old said she’s been scrutinized her whole career for her weight, specifically when she was acting on Living Single. She recounted hearing that she and her female co-stars “needed to lose weight.”
The Last Holiday actress also talked about some designers not making clothes that fit her body.
The women dived into work bias that impacts people with bigger body types. Host Jada Pinkett Smith cited a Bloomberg article that found “…for every 6 pounds an average American woman gains, her hourly pay drops 2%.”
“Those things affect you,” Latifah said of the article. “It crushes people.”
Latifah concluded the conversation, saying that it’s important people of color stay in tune with what’s happening internally.
“Black and Brown people are dealing with a lot of stressors,” she said. “And those things are affecting our health.”
