Speakers at the Socialism 2026 conference in Chicago argued that conventional ideas about fitness, weight, dieting and bodily optimization can reinforce capitalist, eugenic and fascist systems, with one panelist declaring that “the more dysgenic, the better.”

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

Speakers at the Socialism 2026 conference in Chicago drew attention online Saturday after arguing that conventional ideas about physical fitness, dieting, obesity and bodily optimization can function as tools of capitalist discipline and what they described as “body fascism.”

Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Da’Shaun L. Harrison appeared at the gathering in a discussion focused on health, the body and political power, advancing arguments that challenged common assumptions surrounding fitness and weight.

In one widely circulated clip from Adler-Bolton’s remarks, she argued that the political left should reject the idea that its members need to become physically superior to their ideological opponents.

“The More Dysgenic, the Better”: Beatrice Adler-Bolton Says the Left Must Give Up the “Fantasy of Being Fitter Than the Fascists”

At Socialism 2026, Adler-Bolton argues that “fitness is a measure of relative disposability under capitalism” and says the goal should not be to become “more useful to the ruling order.”

She says the left should not try to beat fascists “at their own game” by becoming “fitter, more eugenic.”

“In fact, the more dysgenic, the better, I think.”

She closes by arguing that revolution is not “a contest between optimized and properly prepared bodies” and that the very idea is itself fascist.

The remarks do not amount simply to an argument that exercise itself is fascist. Adler-Bolton’s broader contention was that physical fitness can acquire a political meaning when societies use bodily strength, health, productivity or physical optimization as measures of a person’s value or usefulness.

Her use of the terms “eugenic” and “dysgenic” placed the discussion within a historical debate over eugenics, in which governments and political movements sought to classify populations according to supposedly desirable and undesirable biological characteristics.

Adler-Bolton argued that socialists should not respond to such thinking by trying to prove they can produce healthier, stronger or more optimized bodies than their political opponents.

Instead, she rejected the premise that political worth should be determined by physical fitness at all.

The comments rapidly spread online, particularly the statement, “In fact, the more dysgenic, the better, I think.”

Another speaker at the conference, Harrison, approached the subject through race, weight and public-health standards.

In a separate discussion of “Black fat flesh” and body politics, Harrison argued that systems for measuring and regulating body weight are connected to broader structures of political control.

Da’Shaun L. Harrison at Socialism 2026 argues that the policing of “Black fat flesh” is foundational to broader “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 says.

Harrison argues that diet culture trains “obedience,” “self-denial,” and “discipline,” before expanding the framework into what Harrison calls “body fascism.”

The argument challenges mainstream medical treatment of obesity as primarily a health issue and instead places weight classifications, dieting and bodily discipline within a political framework.

Harrison has previously used the term “body fascism” to describe systems in which an idealized body becomes associated with health, credibility, discipline and social worth while bodies that fall outside that ideal are stigmatized or subjected to greater control.

At the Chicago conference, that framework was applied to the body mass index, the medical concept of an obesity epidemic, diet culture and institutions responsible for studying and treating weight-related health conditions.

Harrison’s argument was that those systems do not merely measure bodies but also help determine which forms of bodily existence society treats as acceptable.

The remarks drew significant attention because they reinterpret practices ordinarily discussed in medical or personal-health terms — losing weight, maintaining physical fitness, measuring BMI and regulating diet — as questions involving political authority and social control.

That framing differs sharply from conventional public-health guidance, which generally evaluates obesity and fitness according to associations with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mobility and other health outcomes.

The conference discussion instead focused on who defines health, how those standards are enforced and whether expectations surrounding the body can become mechanisms for producing compliance.

Both presentations shared a broader skepticism toward the concept of bodily optimization.

Adler-Bolton challenged the idea that activists should seek to become fitter or more physically prepared than political opponents.

Harrison challenged the assumption that reducing obesity or encouraging dietary discipline is politically neutral.

Together, the presentations placed fitness, health standards and weight inside a larger critique of capitalism, state authority and social hierarchy.

The speakers’ language also reflects an academic tradition in which concepts surrounding health and the body are examined through race, class, disability and political power rather than solely through medicine.

Harrison’s discussion of “Black fat flesh,” for example, treated anti-fat attitudes as connected to systems governing race and social status.

Diet culture, in that framework, becomes more than a collection of individual choices about food.

Harrison described it as a means of teaching “obedience,” “self-denial,” and “discipline.”

Adler-Bolton likewise argued against evaluating political movements based on whether their supporters appear physically stronger, healthier or better prepared than their opponents.

Her remarks suggested that attempting to build a movement of physically optimized people would concede the underlying premise that human beings should be valued according to bodily usefulness.

That is why she described fitness as “a measure of relative disposability under capitalism.”

The most provocative portion of her comments came when she connected fitness competition with eugenics.

She said the left should not attempt to defeat fascists “at their own game” by becoming “fitter, more eugenic.”

“In fact, the more dysgenic, the better, I think.”

The term “dysgenic” historically refers to characteristics considered contrary to supposedly desirable hereditary qualities and has often appeared as the inverse of eugenic thinking.

Her use of the term appeared intended as a rejection of the underlying eugenic premise rather than a literal program of selective reproduction.

She concluded by rejecting the idea that revolutionary politics should become “a contest between optimized and properly prepared bodies.”

The conference attendees shown in the circulating footage were also frequently wearing masks.

Rather than establishing anything about individual attendees’ personal views concerning COVID-19 lockdown policies, the masks were consistent with health practices adopted at the gathering.

Socialism 2026 brought together activists, writers and political organizers in Chicago for several days of panels dealing with socialist theory, labor, race, health, abolition, technology and other political and cultural subjects.

The fitness and body-politics discussion became one of the conference’s most widely circulated sessions because of the unusual terminology and its direct challenge to familiar ideas about health.

Online reaction largely centered on Adler-Bolton’s statement that “the more dysgenic, the better” and Harrison’s argument that institutions organized around obesity and BMI depend on having populations to discipline.

Those brief clips can sound like blanket opposition to exercise or medical care when removed from the speakers’ larger theoretical arguments.

The presentations themselves advanced a broader proposition: that societies can transform ideas about health and fitness into standards for judging productivity, worth and conformity, and that those standards should therefore be examined politically rather than accepted as neutral.

Whether listeners accept that framework is another matter.

The comments place the speakers well outside conventional discussions of nutrition, fitness and obesity, and their use of terms including “eugenic,” “dysgenic” and “body fascism” has helped make the Socialism 2026 panel one of the most debated portions of the Chicago gathering.

At its core, the discussion presented a distinctly ideological challenge to the idea that becoming healthier, fitter or thinner is necessarily an uncomplicated social good.

Adler-Bolton argued that political movements should reject competition over who can produce the most “optimized” bodies.

Harrison argued that systems for categorizing and managing weight can serve broader structures of discipline.

Together, they offered a vision of bodily politics in which fitness itself is not merely a matter of personal health but can become entangled with much larger arguments over capitalism, race, authority and social control.

Original article