"How many middle-aged white women fear their husbands will find them less attractive if their weight drops to less than 200 pounds?"

"I have yet to meet one. But I know many black women whose sane, handsome, successful husbands worry when their women start losing weight. My lawyer husband is one."

From a NYT op-ed by writer Alice Randall.

If perceptions of feminine beauty vary by race, what does this mean for policymakers who want to shape our health habits? Won't it be race discrimination to incentivize weight loss?

When the biologist Daniel Lieberman suggested in a public lecture at Harvard this past February that exercise for everyone should be mandated by law, the audience applauded, the Harvard Gazette reported. A room full of thin affluent people applauding the idea of forcing fatties, many of whom are dark, poor and exhausted, to exercise appalls me....

Appalls her... and yet, Randall says:

WE have to change. Black women especially....

My goal is to be the last fat black woman in my family....

I call on every black woman for whom it is appropriate to commit to getting under 200 pounds or to losing the 10 percent of our body weight that often results in a 50 percent reduction in diabetes risk....

MEANWHILE: A new Rasmussen poll shows 63% of Americans oppose "sin taxes" on soda and junk food. Should we perceive these taxes as racially discriminatory?