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 that encourage young girls to diet. Who says that to be pretty you have to be thin? Some people look better thin and some don’t. There is almost a standard being created where only thin is acceptable. The influence of those magazines on girls as young as 13 is horrific.”

I could argue (at length) about the comment that “Some people look better thin and some don’t,” because I think that’s problematic. Also the word “almost” in that bolded sentence. But the fact that she’s pissed off about this and speaking out is pretty awesome.

Via CDAN comes this letter from Sophia Bush about those ridiculous “Eat Less” shirts from Urban Outfitters.

I am fortunate enough to star on a wonderful TV show called One Tree Hill. I play a fashion designer named Brooke Davis, who started a campaign on the show called “Zero Is Not A Size” and the outpouring of love and gratitude that came my way from girls and women ALL OVER THE WORLD who have body image issues brought me to tears.

To promote starvation? To promote anorexia, which leads to heart disease, bone density loss, and a slew of other health problems, not least of all psychological issues that NEVER go away? Shame on you. I will no longer be shopping at your stores. And I will encourage the tens of thousands of female supporters I have to do the same. I have fought to boycott BP. I never imagined I would also be boycotting affordable fashion.

You should issue a public apology, and make a hefty donation to a women’s organization that supports those stricken with eating disorders. I am sickened that anyone, on any board, in your gigantic company would have voted ‘yes’ on such a thing, let alone enough of you to manufacture an item with such a hurtful message.

I’m hoping (and assuming) “Zero Is Not A Size” is not against very slim women, but instead against the idea that the size for these women has that name. But I don’t watch One Tree Hill so one of you might have to fill me in. Anyway, it sounds like Sophia Bush is very engaged with the world, and trying to use her celebrity to effect some positive change. That’s awesome.

And finally, Hayley Hasselhoff talks about the awesomeness that is Huge, and how she embraces her curves.

I related to Amber [her character] a lot when I was younger growing up, but I think I’m finally at a point in life where I’m comfortable with who I am… I’m so glad there’s a show that teenagers can look up to young girls and realize it’s okay to be voluptuous.

Three celebrities speaking out and telling teens it’s okay to be who you are? Feels like a Feel Good Friday to me.

I started modeling in 1998, at the age of 19, at 5′11″ (180 cm) and 120 pounds (55 kg). I grew up hating my body. I was always too tall and too thin. I loathed every encounter with the school nurse (she used to ask if my parents fed me), and by the time I was 13, I had acknowledged the fact that I was labeled a freak by the society around me. I can’t even remember how many times I have been asked (sometimes by total strangers on the street) if I had an eating disorder. Both of my parents are tall and thin, as are my siblings, but my body was the freakiest of all. I felt abnormal, and now in hindsight I wonder if I felt like that only because of the mean comments people made. I have a feeling I would have developed a more normal relationship with my body if I had been allowed to be who I was.

2.    The totally reliable Examiner is claiming that Megan Fox was kicked off the Transformers 3 set for being “too skinny.”

Fox and Transformers director Michael Bay had a “huge row” over her weight. The 24-year-old stormed out after the blow-up after Bay called her “unhealthy”.

“[Bay] thinks she has lost too much weight and looks too frail. He wanted her to put on some weight and it all kicked off.”

Bay wasn’t the only one concerned with Megan Fox’s weight loss. Even the crew said she was far from sexy and more a “gaunt, pale image”.

3.    The L.A. Times covers the fat celebrities who make their money (and careers) from their size. (Goddamn it, Kirstie Alley.)

Welcome to the era of the fat celebrity. No longer is it shameful, shocking or a career killer for the famous to make weight struggles the centerpiece of their lives. In fact, they’re making money off of it.

“Fat celebrities are particularly irresistible because in the real culture people are constantly struggling with what’s wrong with their bodies,” says University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, author of “The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession With Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health.” “People can identify with that, and this is another way of tapping into the fascination with celebrities as being both unique but somehow just like us.”

4.    iVillage is throwing a contest—who loves themselves the most?

iVillage Beauty & Style is all about making women feel confident. Whether through a perfect manicure, a head-turning dress, or your go-to lipstick, iVillage encourages you to express your personal style with pride.

Upload a photo and sound clip of yourself, talking about how hot you are and why, on IVillage’s fotobabble site and maybe win $500.

5.    Check out Letters to My Body, a very cool community-based body image project that you can join.

The purpose Letters to My Body (LTMB) is to serve as a catalyst for open discussion and free speaking about the positive and negative feelings that we have concerning our bodies.  The hope is that through an anonymous vessel such as a letter, we can begin to heal the wounds that have been cultivated over our lifetimes, and also to praise our bodies and recognize that they are beautiful–no matter what shape, size, or condition.

In addition, I hope that Letters to My Body will bring awareness to the countless women and men who suffer from eating disorders.  I want this silent disease to stop being so silent.

For Fatosphere stuff, I read the Notes from the Fatosphere feed, as well as the Alltop Fatosphere listing, and of course Fatshionista and The Curvy Fashionista.

For discussions on feminism, I hit Jezebel and Tiger Beatdown. For race, I check out Racialicious. (The closest I get to a blog about gayness is just the apolitical Tom and Lorenzo, so I would love any recs you may have.)

I get my TV chatter from the recently relocated Alan Sepinwall, celebrity gossip from Crazy Days and Nights (best experienced in Google Reader), and I’m passionately devoted to Go Fug Yourself (celebrity fashion) and Monkey See (general pop culture stuff).

I also follow a bunch of great lists on Twitter, most of which I found because @bigfatdeal is on them.

That’s a lot, but it’s not enough! What fat-themed and feminist blogs are your favorites? (Feel free to mention your own, too.) Or is BFD the only one you read? And what are the blogs, on any subject, that you couldn’t live without?

The diet involves eating 14 servings of baby food a day followed by a healthy adult dinner, and Jen has reportedly lost 7 pounds in the past week.

Yeah, that sounds healthy.

The Baby Food Diet (and the famous people who love it) is a plot point in the young adult novel I just wrote! (Pear and pineapple, which I tasted for research purposes thanks to my friend Aych, makes an appearance.) So I’d better finish editing my novel so I can sell it and become rich and famous on Jennifer Aniston’s coattails while the Baby Food Diet is still making headlines.

“No one in Hollywood told me they wanted to see a movie about a 350-pound black girl who had HIV,” Daniels blurted out during his acceptance speech, before realizing that he’d possibly embarrassed his full-figured star. Trying to cover up his mistake, the director stuttered at Sidibe and the audience, “She’s not 350 pounds. … Gabby… But the book says. … “

According to the article, this “mortified” and “noticeably upset” her, and it was a “stinging blow.”

“Daniels kept apologizing in front of the crowd, and even though Gabby was upset by his comment, she still accepted his apology. She was like, ‘Okay. I wanted that in there. Thank you,’ ” says a source. “It’s not like this was the first time someone has made a hurtful remark about her weight, even unintentionally.”

I guess I’m a little confused that this is seen as a “hurtful remark.” I have no idea how much Sidibe weighs or how tall she is, but does the number really matter? Maybe it’s just the automatic idea that 200+ pounds = enormously fat and 300+ pounds = immediate explosion and death. Which, as we all know, is crap. I wonder what a Gabourey Sidibe guessing game would look like.

Ah, the 1-800-GET-THIN billboards. Although I’m sure they’re all over the place, I seem to only see them all over Los Angeles. I can’t help but imagine a sinister undercurrent. Dear Aspiring Actress Who Just Moved To Hollywood… Have lap band surgery, which is a total breeze, obviously, and be transformed into the ideal thin blonde movie star type! Become the next Charlize Theron today! Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Anyway, if you’re a longtime reader, you know my weakness for celebrity gossip, and when I saw a recent blind item, I was reminded of those billboards. This tidbit comes from from Lainey Gossip:

Our perfect parent found a permanent way to keep the weight down – with a lap band installation a few years ago. At the same time, she thought she’d help out her little girl too. By pretty much forcing her teenage daughter to have one put in as well. The child protested but to no avail. And better still, instead of paying out of her own pocket, she insisted that the surgery be funded out of her precious’s bank account. Well in hindsight, no wonder.

It’s hard to imagine this could refer to anyone but Courtney Love, who recently lost custody of 17-year-old Frances Bean Cobain. There have been rumors floating around for a while that Courtney had this surgery, and the references in the blind item to her being out of money (and dipping into Frances’s trust fund) also make sense.

Also, Frances’s medical records were reportedly sealed because they “reveal details of Frances’s relationship with her mother.” Hopefully Courtney can get it together and Frances will keep a good head on her shoulders. I wish nothing but the best for The Bean, and for Courtney too, for that matter.

One would also hope that WLS would be viewed as a serious undertaking, not a way to drop a few pounds from an already slender frame. And that a teenager wouldn’t be forced into having lap-band surgery without her consent. And furthermore, that there would be plenty roles for actresses of all shapes and sizes and races and body types in Hollywood. I mean, while I’m wishing for things…

We first wrote about Sara Rue all the way back in aught six, when she lost a bunch of weight and it was speculated (by gossipy people) that she’d had weight loss surgery and had to have it reversed. Here’s what I said at the time:

[I]f she wants to go all Reese Witherspoon for the sake of her career, I guess more power to her. I can’t imagine that looking like yet another generic Hollywood blonde would be helpful, but let’s face it, I’m probably wrong. Thirdly, I am depressed to have lost one of our hot, young, sexy, curvy-chick role models. And finally, I think she was way cuter before. But then again, we all know that girls-who-look-like-me are totally my type.

Well, I guess losing a lot of weight didn’t magically kickstart her career; but she gained some of the weight back and is now working for Jenny Craig.

“My weight has fluctuated my whole life, and because I’ve been on television since I was 11 years old, everyone has seen it,” she explains. “I think like so many women in this country I have a problem controlling what I eat sometimes based on my emotional health”… Rue’s initial weight loss goal is 30 pounds. Then, she says, “we’ll see how my body looks, how I feel, and go from there.” Her first post-weight loss goal? “Rock climbing or wind surfing!” Rue says. “The things that I’m just too intimidated the size I am now to do.” But the big question remains: Does she want to follow in Bertinelli’s footsteps and sport a bikini? “If I look half as good as Valerie does at the end of this, maybe, possibly,” Rue says, smiling. “I don’t know if I’m more scared of sharks or being in a bathing suit. Maybe sharks, depending on the day.”

Someone out there tell me you’re a fat rock climber or wind surfer! This makes me want to go wind surfing right now, when I’m way bigger than Sara Rue. Sigh. I know it’s none of my business, but she’s so cute again! I’m on the Sara Rue weight emotional roller coaster. Why does this always happen to me when some celebrity signs up to sell a diet?

Oh, Kirstie Alley. You’re a ridiculously beautiful woman. You’re reasonably talented, you’re fairly charming, you’re actually pretty hilarious, even. My point is, you have many excellent qualities, all of which are ripe for the picking and/or exploitation. You could have a career, Kirstie Alley! You could be an Actress, full stop. You don’t have to spend the entirety of your career being a Fat Actress. You don’t have to base all your attention-getting activies on the size of your body and the shape of your ass. Enough with Jenny Craig and the bikinis on Oprah and swearing that you’re going to get back into a bikini, on Oprah.

What I’m saying, Kirstie Alley, is that you don’t need to have a goddamn reality show about how you’re going to lose the weight. Kirstie Alley, you are equally hot and you are equally talented at every size you have ever been. But more importantly, Kirstie Alley: you are more than your goddamn fat. I’m tired of hearing you talk about it and I’m tired of hearing you complain about it, and I’m tired of hearing you hate on yourself and your body and your life.

I’m sorry, Kirstie Alley. I didn’t mean to get angry at you. It’s just–please believe me, Kirstie Alley, when I say that I’m not discounting your struggle, how difficult it is to be an actress in Hollywood, how incredibly hard it must be to work in an industry where you’re only as good as the size of your ass. I just wish, I guess, you didn’t have to buy into the game. I wish you didn’t have to say ha ha, everyone, I know how awful it is that I am fat! It just makes me sad. It just makes me wish you could be simultaneously happy with your size and happy in your career and successful and while I’m at it, I may as well wish the same for everyone, and ponies for all, and world peace and teleportation technology via the magic of physics. You know, the easy stuff.

Uncle Karl then went on to lose 90 pounds or so with the help of a doctor and a lot of starvation, and the avoidance of exercise which only makes you hungry. Hunger is a terrible, terrible thing. So is being fat, says Uncle Karl. There’s a trend toward using less-skinny models in runway shows, and Karl doesn’t like it one bit. Karl, in fact, thinks that it is “absurd.”

“No one wants to see curvy women,” Lagerfeld said. “You’ve got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying thin models are ugly.” Fashion is about “dreams and illusions.”

Dreams and illusions! Ha! Oh Karl. You are an asshole. And you’re kind of an idiot, too. And you know, I was filled with rage when I first read your quote, but I think, in the end, I just feel kind of sorry for you. You used to smile a lot, when you were fat but still, I assume, eating things. And now I don’t remember the last time I saw you looking anything but grim. I’m sorry you’re hungry all the time, Karl, that you have to starve yourself to stay so thin and gaunt-looking and you suggest we all do the same in your diet book, that you seem to be a miserable, kind of creepy and grim old man who hates the person you used to be. I mean, a fan to hide your double chin. That’s pretty sad, Karl.

Your dreams and illusions, the ones where you are fabulous and elegant and enviably slim, they sure are hard to keep up with, aren’t they, Karl? Go have a bowl of low-sodium broth, Karl, and salt it with your tears.

And now another one has surfaced! The company apologized for the first ad, saying it was “mistakenly released.” How can they explain this one? My guess is that someone in their art department is clinically insane.

I’m not a consipiracy theorist, I swear it. But I’ve got to tell you, it’s not hard to start thinking that maybe this isn’t an oopsie do, tee hee! Maybe Ralph Lauren is making some kind of twisted commentary about women’s bodies. Maybe Ralph Lauren and Karl Lagerfeld are best friends! Maybe someone ought to retire their Photoshop license.