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 | 21 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 »

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 »

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 | 21 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 »

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 »

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 »

So, let’s talk about “real women.” We hear this phrase a lot, often in the sense that “real women have curves” and that, by extension, skinny women are somehow not “real.” And this article from the Sydney Morning Herald articulates the problem: Women have been caught in a pointless feedback loop as we debate what [...]

Filed under: Advertising, Celebrities, Fashion, Feminism, International, Race & Ethnicity | 30 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 »

1. April catches grief because she doesn’t want to follow someone’s weight-loss diary on Facebook. I’ve already “hidden” posts on my news feed from folks who seem to think that a running litany of everything they ate/didn’t eat wanted to eat/didn’t want to eat or weight they lost/gained inexplicably was the utmost in fascinating conversation… [...]

Filed under: Feminism, Links, Old Timey, Politics, Weight Loss | 5 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 »

On Heavy Girls and Sexy Times, by Silvana, at Tiger Beatdown. 2. Here is what you learn very early, as a young woman prone to fatness, even before puberty: My body is bad. My body is disgusting. My body is something for me to fight against. My body will not cooperate with my desire to [...]

Filed under: Feminism, Kids, Sex & Romance, Tidbit | 4 Comments »

So this is like, a blog/Twitter crossover event! On Twitter, they have “Follow Fridays,” where you tell people who to follow on Twitter. So here’s my Follow Friday for you–The Illusionists, No Country for Young Women, and Revolution of Real Women. Because these three Twitter streams (in addition to being consistently awesome) are where I [...]

Filed under: Beth Ditto, Celebrities, Diet Talk, Feel Good Friday, Feminism, Magazines, Music, Photoshop, Video, Weight Loss | 4 Comments »

Hooters is making headlines because a 5’8″, 132 pound server was told, during her performance review, to lose weight. It was the “uniform evaluation” portion of the performance review, which is presumably when they critique your body and then threaten to fire you. Lovely. [She was told] she would be given a free gym membership [...]

Filed under: Feminism, Food, The Office | 26 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 »

I’ve been feeling the need to find some new blogs to squeeze into my already overfull Google reader! So I figured, it’s Friday, let’s chat about our favorite stops on the Internet these days! For Fatosphere stuff, I read the Notes from the Fatosphere feed, as well as the Alltop Fatosphere listing, and of course [...]

Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Feel Good Friday, Feminism, Gossip, Meta, Question | 11 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 »

Okay, I know almost nothing about Elena Kagan at this point, except what Jezebel told me. So this isn’t about politics. It’s about the fact that as soon as I saw her picture, I knew exactly what was coming: fat jokes. A random sampling: First Impressions: Kagan looks like a fat drag queen. Yeash that [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Feminism, Movies, Politics | 20 Comments »

1. Thanks to La Wade for this link: Chelsea Clinton asks her dad to lose 15 pounds before walking her down the aisle. “She doesn’t think I’m in shape to handle it. You know, she told me the other day, she said, ‘Dad the only thing you gotta do is walk me down the aisle [...]

Filed under: Celebrities, Feminism, Humor, Jenfu, Links, Meta, Movies | 3 Comments »

Chinese reader Maya sends along a link to photos of an “obesity competition” held in a shopping mall in China’s Shenyang, Liaoning province. Maya adds: What do you think? Aside from the fact that those dresses are FANTASTIC, I feel like this is really exploititive and just a way to make the general population laugh. [...]

Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Feel Good Friday, Feminism, International | 7 Comments »

1. The new Oprah biography contains a shocking allegation about pecan pie (and, perhaps, an opportunity to become educated about food addiction). From Michelle Coppola: Oprah once ordered two pecan pies from room service and *shudder* ATE THEM BOTH!! And what, Kitty Kelley? The earth tilted on its axis from Oprah’s subsequent weight gain? As [...]

Filed under: Advocacy, Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Food, Kids, Links, Magazines, Meta, Oprah, Race & Ethnicity | 17 Comments »

I talked about roles written for men going to women in this post, and serendipitously, my issue of Entertainment Weekly this week has an article about Angelina Jolie’s sex change in Salt. However, check out this line: “In the original script, there was a huge sequence where Edwin Salt saves his wife, who’s in danger,” [...]

Filed under: Angelina Jolie, Celebrities, Feminism, TV, The Office | 3 Comments »