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 | 23 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 | 15 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 | 27 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 »

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 »

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 »

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 | 6 Comments »

This seems to be the week for celebrity women to advocate for body positivity—or at least, it’s the week I found all these links! First off, from Becky on Twitter comes this story about Penelope Cruz, who says you don’t have to be thin to be pretty. “I would close down all those teenage magazines [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Celebrities, Fashion, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feel Good Friday, Feminism, Gossip, Hayley Hasselhoff, Huge, International, Kids, Magazines, TV | 7 Comments »

I had a fabulous time last weekend seeing Adam Lambert’s show at the Warfield in San Francisco. In fact, I was right up against the stage, so close that I could see the individual flecks of glitter on his skin. And other than a few songs that I don’t really care for, it was a [...]

Filed under: Adam Lambert, Celebrities, Fatism, Personal, Question, Video | 23 Comments »

1. Plus-size model Velvet D’Amour emailed me about her new photography site, Velvetography, which features both “regular” and plus-sized models like the one pictured here. Some of the photos are nudes, so consider this your NSFW warning! 2. I think I’m in love with Amanda Piasecki, who coined the term “Fatshionista,” after reading this interview [...]

Filed under: Art, Celebrities, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Humor, NSFW, Velvet d'Amour | 9 Comments »

One of our most commented posts ever is the “how do strangers treat you?” post linked in the sidebar. It’s been two years, and we keep getting responses that are so thoughtful and represent such a range of experience. I wanted to post some of the recent ones. First, Becky is mocked in front of [...]

Filed under: Fatism, Feminism, Meta, Question, Sex & Romance | 16 Comments »

Thanks to Ian (who I’ve been begging to take me to the Harry Potter theme park) and @GinandPopcorn for alerting me to this story: some guests are being turned away from the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride for being unable to fit in the seats. Universal seems to have anticipated this issue, stationing [...]

Filed under: Fatism, Harry Potter, Kids | 32 Comments »

1. We talked about April Flores, the plus-size pinup and adult film star awhile back. She’s in the news again, criticizing the ridiculous American Apparel for their sizing prejudices, and talking about her work, body confidence, and fat prejudice. As if you needed more evidence that she’s both gorgeous and awesome. I now know that [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Art, Beth Ditto, Celebrities, Comics, Fashion, Fat Positive, Fatism, Humor, Media | 11 Comments »

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know of my conflicted feelings about Ricky Gervais. But, the problem is, he keeps hating on fat people and making it more and more difficult for me to love him. (I have the same issue with Joel McHale on The Soup. I love his shows—especially Community—and I [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Drop Dead Diva, Fatism, Feminism, Guest Post, Humor, Magazines, Ricky Gervais, TV, The Office | 10 Comments »

This nasty piece of Fatism in the Wild comes from Portland, Oregon. Rose sent in her story, including a picture of the insulting note that was left on her sister’s car. I can’t believe anyone would write a note like this based on someone happening to legally park, one time, in front of their house. [...]

Filed under: Fatism | 70 Comments »

The folks at Urban Outfitters (those owl-pushers) are now selling a shirt with the words “Eat Less” scrawled across the front—modeled, of course, by a very thin model. And it is pissing people off. People like Stephanie Hayes: It’s just mean, scary and damaging to all the poor innocent girls who ALREADY feel like Shamu [...]

Filed under: Advertising, Eating Disorders, Fashion, Fatism, Humor | 43 Comments »

1. We all know I get ridiculous PR spam, but a real doozy landed in my mailbox yesterday, featuring the top five “Flabulous Celebrity Love Handle Offenders” who can fix their “offensive” love handles with a Spanx-type product that we should all run out and buy too! (Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of mentioning the [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Art, Beth Ditto, Beyonce, Books, Britney Spears, Celebrities, Crystal Renn, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Health, International, Jessica Simpson, Kirstie Alley, Links, Music, Nikki Blonsky, Science, TV | 8 Comments »

Cindy in the comments alerted us to a couple of posts on SF Gate that I thought were worthy of their own post. First, an article with the headline Fat people deny their [sic] plus size: In the same way as anorexics may have a distorted self-perception of being fat, some overweight and obese people [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, International, Media, Movies, Queen Latifah, Sex & Romance | 38 Comments »

Last week’s performance of “Dream a Little Dream” on Glee reminded me that it’s been 40 years since Cass Elliott sang that song. She had one of the most beautiful voices of the mid-1900′s, right up there with Streisand and Karen Carpenter, but she almost never makes the lists of amazing influential female singers. I’m [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, Old Timey, Video, Weetabix | 13 Comments »

Jezebel republished an essay by Tasha Fierce at Red Vinyl Shoes called “As Fat As I Wanna Be,” articulating the idea that if you eat junk food, and are lazy, and don’t exercise, and are fat, you still don’t deserve to be shamed and concern trolled and vilified for your fatness. The Jezebel post is [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Carnie Wilson, Celebrities, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Health, Kirstie Alley | 16 Comments »

We’ve talked about Passive Aggressive Notes before, when a woman sent a tragically misspelled note to some strangers at lunch, suggesting they should lose weight. Well, here we go again! Please do not take this the wrong way, I am just concerned for your health. Have you considered Weight Watchers? This was sent to a [...]

Filed under: Fatism, TV, Tidbit, Weight Loss | 15 Comments »

I was driving to a meeting tonight, and flipped through my radio presets. When I got to Live 105, I heard a promo that went something like this: Music was originally used by cavemen… to drive fat chicks away. Just a throwaway bit, but it pissed me off. The implication that music is for men, [...]

Filed under: Fatism, Feminism, Music, Tidbit | 9 Comments »

Emily alerted us in the comments about this TV pilot going into production. From the WSJ: The formula: “Mad About You” meets “The Biggest Loser” The plot: A romantic comedy about a couple that meets at a support group for overeating. The brand names: Co-creator Chuck Lorre can do no wrong for CBS lately with [...]

Filed under: Fat Positive, Fatism, Magazines, TV | 14 Comments »