victorian221b | Mycroft and Victorian attitudes to weight

I came across an article by Mimi Matthews called Victorian Fat Shaming, where it is shown how views on being corpulent changed throughout the 19th century:

During the early and mid-Victorian era, a great many health and beauty books echoed the popular 19th century sentiment that plumpness equaled good health. It was leanness, not heaviness, to which beauty experts directed the majority of their criticism. [...] ...by the end of the century a new trend was on the rise. No longer was roundness or plumpness seen as being wholly synonymous with health and beauty. Instead, many Victorians began to view excess weight as a sign that a woman was inconsiderate, stupid, lazy, and—in some cases—even promiscuous or insane.

While these standards were applied to female beauty, men must have faced similar challenges because sports became highly fashionable, and being fit was in favour. E.g. here are excerpts from ACD’s letters:

On Saturdays I play football on the quiet and so get a little exercise for I am growing quite stout (15 stone eight was my last weight). (ca. 1884)

Gibbs has also put me on a severe diet which is certainly doing me good. I have been on it a week & I am very fit and have not had a real bad night so you can think that we are pleased. (ca. 1901)

It seems that at that time there also appeared the stereotype that corpulence affected mental faculties which can be noticed even in the present day mass media. In many films today main characters are usually lean while corpulent characters are often comic reliefs (Nigel Bruce’s Watson was one too).

The Victorian idea that obesity was incompatible with intelligence and mental acuity was a common one. As a 1900 edition of the Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette reports:

“Obesity always carries with it physical and often mental weakness…”

This stereotype was frequently enforced by overweight characters in popular plays and novels who were portrayed as dimwitted and lazy.

And then there’s Mycroft Holmes, whose analytic powers are stronger than those of his thin brother. I think that it’s rather cool that ACD introduced such a character against the stereotype. I wonder what Mycroft thought of the fat shaming trend. It would be great to see it in fic. If you have any recs, please share! :)