Michelle Fonville speaking out about her treatment at the nail salon reminds me of another form of speaking out: writing a letter of complaint. Recently(ish), BFD reader cb wrote in to share part of a survey she’d filled out after shopping at the Gap’s online store, and the response she received. She rated her online [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Fashion, Old Navy | 29 Comments »

It’s actually not often that I get emails from more than one tipster on the same subject, but Kari, Leigh, and Amy all sent me links to this story! A woman in Georgia was told she would have to pay $5 extra for her manicure because she was fat. Michele Fonville claims she was charged [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Cold Hard Cash, Fatism | 25 Comments »

The days are growing shorter and the air smells like freshly-sharpened pencils. After Labor Day, bare legs are verboten if you adhere to Miss Manners, so what’s a girl to do? Tights, baby. Tights. Finding a decent pair of plus size tights is a bit of a challenge. Sometimes tight purveyors make gigantically long tights [...]

Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Weetabix | 26 Comments »

Oh, celebrities. Or “celebrities,” if you prefer, since we’re talking about two of the Real Housewives, a phenomenon which I can’t even go into, since I don’t understand it at all. Anyway, two of these “housewives” shared their diets with two different tabloids last week. While posing for pictures in bikinis. Ready? Michaele Salahi poses [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Gossip, Magazines, TV | 22 Comments »

We have another great Ask BFD question, this time from Barnardgirl! She’s wondering about the cognitive dissonance of being an advocate and still not accepting yourself fully. Bolding mine: Dear BFD, First, thanks for adding an Ask BFD category. I love your blog and the FA blogosphere so much- I wish I’d known about it [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Ask BFD, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Magazines, Question | 6 Comments »

Oh, the postcards. The postcards with awful puns and “jokes” on them that feature very large models and often show them in the process of eating something. We’ve all seen them, right? I saw this one last month, while I was on vacation in Ohio, and I was like, “oh god, these. I remember these.” [...]

Filed under: Fatism, Kids, Personal, Postcard | 16 Comments »

Firstly, I hope you’ve had a chance to notice all the small improvements around here. We now have buttons on each entry to let you Twitter and Facebook them, you can reply to individual comments, you can have follow-up comments emailed to you (which is really handy if someone joins a conversation late), and you [...]

Filed under: Feel Good Friday, Humor, Meta, Video | 8 Comments »

1. Photographic proof that fat people existed in the past, from Manolo for the Big Girl. Some really cool pictures. 2. Lesley at Fatshionista is doing Huge recaps, and tackles the latest episode here. Also, the cast signs a Body Peace Treaty, but… there are some problems, as The Rotund explains: “Oh, hi, y’all, love [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Food, Huge, Kids, Music, Old Timey, TV | 6 Comments »

The Rotund writes about reclaiming the word fat. That’s why I object to “overweight” as a descriptor. Over what weight? The weight other people think I should be even though they have no experience with my body composition beyond looking at me? The weight a BMI chart says I should be? The weight a fashion [...]

Filed under: BFD Classic, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Question | 28 Comments »

This email landed in our inbox this week, and it inspired me to add a new category called “Ask BFD” to file this post under. I’m going to try and go back and tag some of the terrific posts that have sprung from reader questions. In the meantime, I think this is a great question, [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Ask BFD, Exercise, Question, Weight Loss | 34 Comments »

Bravo has been showing commercials for a new show called Thintervention. Just the title alone makes me want to dry heave. One of my favorite Twitter friends, @GinAndPopcorn, sent me this link, describing the show thusly: The new series is Thintervention—yes, that’s it’s real name, not Andy Cohen screwing with us—“will track the stories of [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, Huge, Mike & Molly, Sara Rue, TV | 17 Comments »

Since we were just talking about “lose weight for your wedding” pressure, this post by Silvana of Tiger Beatdown really resonated. I was pretty fine with my body. Fine with being a fat bride. Fine with the fact that I was wearing a strapless dress which showed off my, yes, arms — which are considered [...]

Filed under: Fatism, Personal, Sex & Romance, Tidbit | 5 Comments »

Earlier this week, a plea for advice turned up in the comments. It directed us to this Dear Sugar column, where a man with “physical deformities and joint abnormalities” wrote in asking for advice: My problem—and my problem with most advice-outlets—is that there’s not much of a resource for people like me. In movies, ugly [...]

Filed under: Question, Sex & Romance | 50 Comments »

On Twitter, Jen_Lee alerted me to this Ask Metafilter post entitled “I want to be a brain in a jar.” The letter-writer is married to a guy who says he doesn’t want to have with her because she’s fat (among other charming qualities). And it gets worse: they are (read: he is) poly*, and the [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Fatism, Feminism, Sex & Romance | 14 Comments »

Cubicalgirl in the comments alerted us to the existence of this shirt, saying: It’s got the universal man/woman icons on it, only the woman is bigger and it says “Team Player” underneath, the implication being that the guy wearing the shirt will “take one for the team” and chat up the fat friend so his [...]

Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Humor, Sex & Romance | 19 Comments »

This ad was posted on Wedinator with the caption, “Hey Look, It’s The Worst Ad Ever.” Of course, in their writeup, they kind of undermine that headline a little by missing the point: Seriously, it’s one thing to encourage your overweight friend or relative to lose a little weight for general health reasons. But to [...]

Filed under: Advertising, Diet Talk, Feminism, Humor | 22 Comments »

1. Found in my referral logs, this Ask Moxie thread has suggestions for places to shop for professional workplace attire if you’re plus-sized. Lots of links in the comments. I may be fat, but I don’t want to look frumpy too. If you or any of your contributors know of good places (aside from Lane [...]

Filed under: Advertising, Fashion | 6 Comments »

We recently talked about how relatively minor incidents can sometimes feel much more significant than they really are. There are a lot of thought-provoking stories in the comments and I urge you to check out the comments thread if you haven’t had a chance lately. I was reminded of that conversation today when I was [...]

Filed under: Art, Celebrities, Fatism, Feminism, Kids, Music, Personal, Question, Sex & Romance, TV, Video | 32 Comments »

A review of Hanes Just My Size is behind the jump. If clothing reviews are your thing, than click on through!

Filed under: BlogHerOff, Fashion, Review | 25 Comments »

If you’ve never heard of Happy News, it’s a website devoted to news and lifestyle stories that are meant to be “always positive.” But an anonymous tipster wrote in and pointed out that often on the site, weight loss is equated to “happy,” and fatness is equated to “unhappy.” Curious, I did a couple of [...]

Filed under: Diet Talk Warning, Fatism, Media, WLS, Weight Loss | 7 Comments »