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This need to be always on guard was an unmeasured expenditure of energy, the slow siphoning of the essence. It contributed to the fast breakdown of our bodies.-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me A series of high-profile slayings of unarmed black men by police have led to the recent emergence of the Black Lives Movement (BLM). The BLM points to these slayings as the visible surface of a much larger and historically entrenched problem where police infringe on the lives of black men in ways that engender unneeded suffering (Garza 2014). Research seems to corroborate these claims by showing: (1) Black men bear the brunt of aggressive and discriminatory policing (Engel and

Police maltreatment, whether experienced personally or indirectly through one’s family or friends, represents a potentially harmful stressor, particularly for minority populations. We address this issue by investigating: (1) how waist circumference (WC) varies by personal and vicarious exposure to unfair treatment by police (UTBP); and (2) to what extent exposure to UTBP explains the black-white disparity in WC. We employed data collected from a community-based sample of black (n = 601) and white (n = 608) adults living in Nashville-Davidson county Tennessee to address these questions. Results from our final linear regression model showed that those who reported vicarious UTBP had WCs that were approximately 2 in. greater than those who did not (b = 2.03; p = 0.003). While personal UTBP was not linked to higher WC, a post-hoc analysis suggested that our ability to detect an association was complicated by selection. Binary mediation analysis revealed that differential exposure to vicarious UTBP accounted for approximately 12% of the black-white WC disparity among women. We found no black-white differences in WC among men. The association between vicarious UTBP and WC did not vary by age, race, or gender. Overall, our findings point toward the role of discriminatory policing as a potential upstream contributor to racial disparities in health.

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