Who were these “flabulous” celebrities? Beyonce, Jessica Simpson, Britney, Kirstie Alley, and Snooki. I mean, seriously. Did you doubt they would all be women? Plus, they sent me some accompanying photos showing the offenses, and they all looked like this. Where’s the “love handles” on Beyonce? Not that there’s anything wrong with “love handles,” Jesus. At least they have a cute name.

2. Okay, here’s a link, and it’s a good one: the “obesity stigma” is not actually helpful. Well, no effing duh. Which is basically what The Well-Rounded Mama says:

I suppose I should be grateful that someone is taking time to disprove the kinds of lame claims that more stigma is needed, not less. On the flip side, though, is that while they are concerned about the negative effects of obesity stigma on fat people, the big concern is that this stigma gets in the way of obesity intervention efforts…

But at least they are saying something against obesity stigma and countering the usual nonsense out there. It just amazes me that some idiots can actually believe that obesity stigma is really an effective tool for health improvement.

3. Another good one: obesity ills are “a myth” according to an Ohio State University study, via Big Fat Blog.

“There is a myth going on. Our findings show being overweight is no different from being what we believe is a healthy weight and this is across a person’s entire lifespan. For college-age adults, this should help them realize that they don’t have to worry so much if they have a BMI of 27 or 28. Some young people with these BMIs feel like, ‘I’m going to have all these problems, I need to try 50 different diets.’ And what is all that stress and dieting doing to your body? Probably more damage than the extra 15 pounds is.”

4. I ran across a Listmania list on Amazon today called “Large-size heroines and more.” Leonard Nimoy, The Gossip, and Nikki Blonsky are all represented, as are some projects I’d never heard of, such as an anthology called Such A Pretty Face…

Each tale has a plus-sized heroine or hero, ranging from a mermaid to a fairy-tale princess.

As well as a guide for plus-sized brides, some Fat Studies readers, and a UK series called Fat Friends.

I can’t vouch for level of empowerment each thing on the list has–for instance, I know Queen Sized was problematic, and there’s a weight loss memoir on there from someone named Michelle McManus, who won Pop Idol in the UK–but there were enough interesting things listed that I figured I’d pass it along.

5. Finally, 340 (and counting) blogs have been added to the comprehensive Fierce Freethinking Fatties Feed, and there are sub-feeds like Fat Acceptance, Fatshion, and Political Allies. (And other sub-feeds that do allow diet talk, so click those with caution.) If you want to find some new reading material or to add your blog to one of those feeds, check it out. Thanks for the heads up, Shannon!

I would ask why are thin women allowed to want different kinds of clothing and fat women are not? I’m pretty sure all of the thin people I have met want different kinds of clothing. I know for a fact that not all thin women want professional clothing or sun dresses. But the fact that they made it seem like asking for jeans is this crazy notion really pissed me off.

2. A three-year-old on Fat Fairies.

“But just because she has a big moom doesn’t make her a bad person, Mummy. Some fairies have big mooms and some fairies have little mooms but they are all good fairies.”

3. Myths about fat bodies from Fat Heffalump.

I want to talk about fat bodies tonight. Cos you know, all the stuff over the past week about body image, all the cries of Disgusting! Vile! Lazy! Unhealthy! Gross! Smelly! and so on that proliferate when we have talk about fat bodies has been burbling about my head and I think that a lot of fat haters and those that fear fat have absolutely no idea about what a fat body really is like, or what it’s like to inhabit a fat body.

4. The Fatistician talks about trusting your doctor.

I think people who are not fat as well as many medical professionals are unaware of the serious trust gap between medical professionals and fat people who’ve been told that their rash/pain/infection/brain tumor will go away if they just stop being fat. Studies have shown that medical professionals do not trust fat patients. But I think it is also important to point out that some of their fat patients don’t trust them either, and for good reason.

5. And B. Miller is having a Pay It Forward contest on her blog. It’s especially geared towards fiction writers, which is tragic, as my Young Adult novel is not yet finished, nor has it yet been published, nor am I currently rich and famous. Any second now, though. Thanks for Tweeting me about this contest!

When someone is fat shamed, the person doing the shaming often justifies it as them being concerned for the fat person’s health. Of course we know that’s bullshit. Fatphobia has nothing to do with health, if someone was really concerned they wouldn’t harp on it to the detriment of fat people’s self esteem. And a ton of fat people can attest that they eat healthily and exercise. I however, cannot. So is the health argument justified in my case? Well, no, because fat also has nothing to do with health. It’s the food I eat that’s the issue. It’s the fact that I eat when I’m definitely not physically hungry. It’s my lack of exercise.

I shouldn’t be expected to prove that oh well I’m trying really hard not to be fat but OMG I’m still fat so leave me alone! If I’m fat by design then so fucking what, I’m “choosing to be fat”. Of course I would still be fat if I ate well, didn’t overeat and exercised, though I might be less fat. But guess what, I don’t really give a shit right now. I am the stereotypical lazy fat person, and I have a right to be that if I damn well please. I’m not repping for the entire FA movement. I’m not trying to set an example. And really, if it’s unacceptable to be a non-HAES fat then how can we say we’re accepting fat? We’re only accepting it if you make sure to do everything right but are still fat? We say fat isn’t a choice. Is it wrong if it is? I’ve gained roughly 10 pounds or so (I’m guessing by the way my clothes fit) since my surgery simply because I’ve chosen to not follow the rules. But that’s my choice and I am sure as shit not going to be shamed by either HAES enthusiasts or bigoted fatphobes.

In response to the comments at Jezebel, Tasha has posted a followup that’s also worth reading:

I’m sorry if you feel like my wanton gluttony is making your fat friends look bad because they exercise and eat right and here I am, blowing it for them, being the stereotype they try so hard not to be. My point was that, again, FAT PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE EXPECTED TO OUTLINE THE WAYS THEY’RE TRYING TO NOT BE FAT, OR THE MEASURES THEY TAKE TO COUNTER THE ILLEGITIMATE CLAIMS THAT FAT = UNHEALTHY.

Right after I read this, we got a comment that I considered unapproving. But instead I think it fits right into this conversation, because it outlines helpfully outlines exactly what kind of fat people we’re allowed to be.

MY support is with those overweight people who will not quit and whose attitude shines with optimism and a desire to become healthy people-inside and out. YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION!!!

That’s right–as Kirstie Alley and Carnie Wilson have shown us time and time again, we’re allowed to be overweight as long as we “never quit” trying, publicly and vocally, to be thinner. As long as we stay on the merry-go-round of dieting, and publicize how well we eat and how much we exercise. And it’s the best first line of defense against a lot of people–it shuts people up. Yeah I’m fat, but… (but I exercise four days a week, but I’m a vegan, but I never eat fast food, but I take a dance class, but but…)

What if the real answer is: yeah, I’m fat. And so what?

ETA: A follow-up by Snarky’s Machine that’s also well worth reading.

1. Celebrity gossip and internet drama, two of my favorite things! But seriously, an interesting discussion going on about Sandra Bullock and Jesse James at Jezebel and at Shapely Prose. The comments (at SP, anyway) make for some fascinating reading and contain plenty of thoughtful debate. (Also, Jesse James is gross. But you knew that.)

Look, I truly don’t have an opinion on what’s in Sandra Bullock’s heart. But I have an opinion on that photo: Appalling and inexcusable. And an opinion on Jesse James: Racist fuckwit. And an opinion on attempts to somehow justify that photo and steer the conversation away from words like “racism” and “anti-Semitism” and “white supremacy” at all costs: Bullshit. And all of that brought me to the opinion that if Bullock wants to keep the stink off her, she’d best issue a statement denouncing her husband’s racist behavior in no uncertain terms. As fast as possible. Which means, basically, yesterday.

2. If you follow the @bigfatdeal Twitter feed and you aren’t a spammer, I’ll follow you back! Which means you can message me if you have a link or a suggestion for a post. The next two links come via Twitter.

First, @pastaqueen sends a link to the Mad Men Barbie dolls, in which the “Betty Draper” doll and the “Joan Holloway” doll have the same Barbie bodies. From the comments:

How do the Betty and Joan dolls have the exact same body? FAIL, Mattel, this was your chance to make a Barbie who could walk upright (were she human).

Yeah, those identical proportions on the Betty and Joan dolls are disappointing, and actually disgraceful in light of what the show is meant to celebrate.

I still want a Joan doll, though. I can’t help it.

3. Next, @erinty has a question that I thought I’d throw out there for the BFD readership to try and answer:

Hi – do you know an active HAES message board or community? I haven’t found one that’s really active myself. can’t find 1. having hard time with the act of losing weight while on HAES, very conflicting!

So if you know of an active HAES forum or you have any thoughts on Erin’s dilemma, please give a shout in the comments.

4. From Nonk: Jennifer Hudson is shilling for Weight Watchers. But it might not be as bad as it could be? Yet, ugh.

What’s different about Hudson’s new commercials is that she’s removed the fat-shaming element. In her other Weight Watcher’s ad below, we see a silhouette of her slimmer thighs, but for the most part her body is obscured as she emphasizes that losing makes her feel — not look — better, and, “It makes me love myself that much more.”

5. And finally, Bay Area BFDivas who are interested in a trip to Igigi on Monday afternoon to try on some clothes, a group of us are going, including Weetabix, who will be in town. Shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested! We need to coordinate with Igigi within the next couple of days, so don’t delay.

Happy Thursday!

A child’s “Happy Meal” may soon be a little less happy in Santa Clara County, where a local official wants to prevent fast-food restaurants from giving away inexpensive toys with kids’ orders. County supervisor Ken Yeager plans to ask his colleagues today to order up a law regulating when fast-food outlets can serve toy cars, action figures and other freebies as part of their children’s’ menus. Yeager says the toys entice young customers to load up on high-calorie fare and may contribute to childhood obesity.

The poll here is interesting, too. I mean so far there are only a whopping 7 votes, but one of the choices is “Sometimes I go out of the way to eat fast food because of a toy they are offering.” and it got me reminiscing. When I was a kid I definitely went out of my way to go to McDonald’s to collect their little plastic Chicken McNugget people (anyone else remember those?) and in college I got really addicted to collecting Monopoly game pieces whenever they had a contest. Of course these days I try to be very moderate about fast food, and I almost always get Happy Meals with apple dippers instead of fries, rather than “grownup” meals. (Which means I get toys! Woo!)

So what do you think–if you have kids, do you allow them to eat at McDonald’s? Do the toys factor in to your decision? Have you ever collected any of the Happy Meal toys? And should McDonald’s be free to sell whatever they want along with their Happy Meals, or is it more like Joe Camel, damaging advertising aimed at children that should be curtailed? I’m very curious to hear your opinions!

Anyway, I’m going out of town this weekend and am teaching classes up until the very last minute, so posting may continue to be light until next week. In the meantime, here are some links for you! (I think there are a few potential juicy conversations in here, so I may pull out some comments and start spinoff posts if it seems like we want to talk more about something.)

The Oscars, cutting calories, Kirstie Alley, schisms in the fatosphere, and a feminist take on LOST coming right up…

1. The Oscars are on Sunday! I can’t wait to see what Gabby Sidibe and Mo’Nique decide to wear. Here they are at the NAACP Image Awards: Gabby in a short, sparkly gray dressand Mo’Nique in a bridal-looking white gown. The Rungay boys on Mo’Nique:

It’s a pretty dress and she looks good, but it’s the same effect that happened with Kate Winslet last year. She got nominated for an Oscar and sand blasted all her unique quirkiness away to make herself look like an Oscar nominee.

2. Urging “small caloric changes” to fight obesity is misleading.

[T]he “small changes” theory fails to take the body’s adaptive mechanisms into account. The rise in children’s obesity over the past few decades can’t be explained by an extra 100-calorie soda each day, or fewer physical education classes. Skipping a cookie or walking to school would barely make a dent in a calorie imbalance that goes “far beyond the ability of most individuals to address on a personal level,” the authors wrote — on the order of walking 5 to 10 miles a day for 10 years.”

“Instead of focusing on weight or appearance, focus on people’s health. There are things people can do to improve their health significantly that don’t require normalizing your weight.”

3. Kirstie Alley should stop trying to lose weight and just own the fat.

Some advice: if Kirstie Alley is going to do a show about being fat, she needs to go Ru-Paul on our asses and work it. Don’t use the word fat as a stand-in for disgusting. Fat is lots of things, but it is not gross. For every outspoken self-hating fat celebrity out there, there are a million fat chicks just trying to be okay with their bodies. Alley has the chance to be a champion for all the chubby girls in the house. How much fun would it be to watch her fabulous, slightly insane self walk around town being all, “I’m fat! What! Pass that cake!” Show her working out (News flash! Lots of fat people work out!), shopping (News flash! We want cute clothes too!), dating (News flash! Lots of dudes dig fat ladies! And thin ladies! Really, men just want to get with a lady!) and just being all about her fabulous fat self.

Jenfu said this very thing a few months ago! Thanks to Becca for the link.

4. Third-wave fat acceptance? An interesting conversation in the Fierce Fatties comments.

There are so many different perspectives in Fat Acceptance. And every time I’ve heard someone say that everyone in fat acceptance agrees on something, I end up thinking about all the instances where that is so not true.

We don’t have a single leader or a single idea that we follow in FA. Even the “big names” of fat acceptance say things like, “we don’t want fat acceptance to be monolithic”…

If fat acceptance is a smorgasbord of ideas, I think each of us needs to pick those things that work for us and discard the rest.

I feel like I’m so out of the loop on FA gossip and drama! I don’t even understand the thing with the three competing feeds; should BFD be on any other feeds? Or would BFD be shunned by the other feeds? I have no idea.

5. I won a Beautiful Blogger Award! Okay, it’s just a little graphic, but it reminds me of the day we won Diarist.net awards and pretended they meant things. (Oh man, Diarist.net is defunct now! Who knew.) Well, it is a lovely compliment to be on Rachel’s list… so thank you!

And in the spirit of the awards, I will point you to the awesome feminist blog Tiger Beatdown, which recently did a feminist analysis of LOST.

My problem with the “most interesting story lines” though, to be troublesomely ladybusiness for a moment, is this: Claire’s most interesting story line was having a baby and a boyfriend. Sun’s most interesting storyline is having a husband and a baby. Kate’s most interesting story line is having two potential boyfriends, between whom she cannot choose, and also a baby eventually. Juliet’s most important storyline was that her boyfriend might have thought for 1.5 seconds about liking another girl so she had to fall down a mine shaft and explode three times on screen.

Happy reading!

The pattern, the Times posits, is that slim people are “fed up” with the obese. Some choice quotes, bolding mine:

Michael Kellner, a trim, 37-year-old public relations professional who lives in San Francisco, is among the disgusted: “I am completely and utterly frustrated with rising healthcare costs due to the deluge of fat Americans taxing the healthcare system. I’m in shape and have been all my life because I don’t soothe myself with food all day.”

Way to snap judge, there, Michael Kellner! And you’re so right on. In fact, after reading your quote, I had to go “soothe myself” with a can of frosting, which I licked off my fingers because I couldn’t be bothered to find a spoon.

Actually now I’m thinking about the whole issue of self-medicating with food. I’ve done it: gained weight during periods of great stress, partially because I learned to associate food with comfort and love as a child. I’m sure I’m not alone. But it doesn’t mean some asshole like this Kellner guy knows what the fuck he’s talking about, or has a right to judge fat people on that basis. Sometimes self-medicating with food in response to legitimate stress is a better alternative to things like suicide or alcoholism. And you can’t, obviously, assume that thin people never do something and fat people always do something, which I think is the salient point. Anyway, moving on.

Los Angeles actor Jim Dailakis feels most frustrated with the fat issue when he travels. “I understand some people have issues that are uncontrollable. However, why is it that if I say anything about being stuck between two huge people on an airplane, I’m being politically incorrect? I work out religiously, watch what I eat and am very healthy. Yes, I’m fed up with it.”

I think we’ve talked the issue of discomfort on airplanes into the ground, haven’t we? The hypocricy of obese people being targeted for making others uncomfortable when, A) they’re uncomfortable themselves, because airplanes suck; and B) it’s a horrible self-conscious experience to fly while fat anyway; and C) you don’t see people attacking parents who bring crying, screaming, or seat-kicking children, who also make flying uncomfortable. We all know all of this, so… moving on again.

“In our society, being heavy has become more of a stigma lately because we’re struggling with other issues of consumption,” says Abigail Saguy, associate professor of sociology at UCLA. The economic climate, a recent history of people buying more than they can afford as well as environmental issues, including the depletion of our planet’s resources, are making people feel more angry about society’s overconsumption, she says. Obviously overweight people are an easy target… If people feel they’re sacrificing, then see someone spilling over an airplane seat, they feel angry that that person is not making the same sacrifices they are.

This is an interesting theory. In fact, it’s the central metaphor of Wall-E, which we’ve discussed before.

If public health officials, employers and still-slim Americans channel their concerns properly, it will have a positive effect, health experts say. “There’s no better example of what happens when public health takes on an issue than what we’ve seen happen with tobacco over the past 10 years…” “Not long ago, the thought of not allowing people in a building to smoke wasn’t realistic; now it’s common. Similarly, in some schools the thought of banning sugary drinks and junk food seems completely unrealistic, but that will change too. The changes will meet resistance, but over time, healthy ideas will gain acceptance.”

Once again, I hope people who want to ban junk food in schools (which I’m obviously not against) will stop demonizing fat people en route to enacting positive change. And also, the idea that it’s only “still-slim Americans” who will have a voice about public health is really, dangerously fucked up.

So, that’s a lot of ground to cover in one post. What do you guys think?

Thanks to @Knifemouth for the link!

Many [psychiatric drugs], which are used to treat emotional problems including depression and anxiety, cause weight gain — often of the rapid and massive sort — as one of their “side effects,” that brilliant marketing term for what are simply negative effects of a drug. It is striking that the weight of many Americans has ballooned just as the prescribing of psychiatric drugs has surged.

And from the “holy shit” file:

Another disturbing link could be on the way. The fifth edition of the major psychiatric diagnostic manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), is expected to be released in 2013. One proposal under consideration: listing obesity as a mental illness. That would be a mistake, since obesity can be caused by metabolic and other physical problems that are often undiagnosed. And because obesity can also result from psychiatric drugs, calling it a mental illness would create a vicious cycle: Someone is troubled, put them on drugs, they become obese, therefore diagnose them as mentally ill, give them more drugs.

This post at Big Fat Delicious discusses the article at greater length.

What do you want to bet that studies have never been done to determine how many fat people are taking those drugs? What do you want to bet that the reason those studies have never been done is because pharmaceutical companies don’t want anyone to know how many people went from average-size to “overweight” or “overweight” to “obese” because of those psychiatric drugs? After all, if those numbers were known, pharma just might have to figure out how to come up with drugs without those nasty “side effects” of weight gain (not to mention that they then couldn’t push their weight loss drugs, with all their nasty “side effects”, on fat people).

The whole post is worth reading. Pretty scary, actually.

Recent studies have found, if you are an overweight woman you:

• May have a harder time getting health insurance or have to pay higher premiums
• Are at higher risk of being misdiagnosed or receiving inaccurate dosages of drugs
• Are less likely to find a fertility doctor who will help you get pregnant
• Are less likely to have cancer detected early and get effective treatment for it

What’s going on here? Fat discrimination is part of the problem. A recent Yale study suggested that weight bias can start when a woman is as little as 13 pounds over her highest healthy weight.

“Our culture has enormous negativity toward overweight people, and doctors aren’t immune,” says Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of “How Doctors Think.” “If doctors have negative feelings toward patients, they’re more dismissive, they’re less patient, and it can cloud their judgment, making them prone to diagnostic errors.”

With nearly 70 million American women who are considered overweight, the implications of this new information is disturbing, to say the least.

Indeed. Very unsettling.

Via @TheFWord Twitter feed.

He admitted he told the patient that thick eyeglasses would not cause her to go blind “but her thick thighs and diabetes would. I poked her thigh to emphasize that diabetes is the leading cause of blindness,” he said Thursday. “People have got to accept criticism without getting their bowels in an uproar.” Sunderhaus, a trim man who appeared before the board wearing cargo pants and sporting a backpack, makes no apologies for his actions.

Apparently he also sexually harassed the reporter who interviewed him! Well, he “tucked $20 into her sweater” which she then returned to him. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Via Obscure Store.