We’ve helped a 21-year-old, a 16-year-old, and a 14-year-old. Now we have a 12-year-old, and we have a tough job ahead of us. You see, she isn’t looking for body image advice. She went to the site hello i am fat (funny blog title; sad search term) because she wants to be skinny like her […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Celebrities, Health, Kids, Miley Cyrus, Personal | 31 Comments »

Phat Science has had some interesting posts this week, and I particularly wanted to talk about yesterday’s post, where La Wade looked at some of the science surrounding so-called “permanent” weight loss, and the factors that contribute to it. These factors seem to include certain dietary and exercise habits, online support, time in front of […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Health, Science, Weight Loss | 46 Comments »

And now for the bad news. I’m posting a link to this article not to bring down the room, but to get the message out there yet again: demonizing fat and fat people is a BAD IDEA that can seriously skew our ideas about self-worth. Just ask the women who participated in the studies discussed […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Fatism, Feminism, Health, Kids, Media, Science, Weight Loss | 27 Comments »

Here’s the e-mail I got today (bolding mine): I guess I don’t really know how to start this, other than I just read the blog about the 14 year old with a bad self image, and it gave me the courage to say something too. I’m 16 years old, and I am bulimic. It doesn’t […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Health, Kids, Meta | 30 Comments »

Our guest post today comes from the delightful Sara, who writes in with a question for all our readers: I am fat. I have diabetes. The two are in no way related to one another. Interesting how that works, huh? I have type 1 diabetes, so my pancreas is going to be dead regardless of […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Guest Post, Health, Personal, Question, Science | 14 Comments »

Apart from times when I’ve been tracking Weight Watchers points, I haven’t really been in the habit of tracking my eating. And I found myself becoming curious about exactly what I was eating—how many calories, how many grams of protein, vitamins, etc. So I signed up for a free account on FitDay, a site that […]

Filed under: Food, Health, Meta, Personal, Science | 59 Comments »

A very interesting and sad story about eating disorders within the Orthodox Jewish community, from Jezebel. Evidently, in arranging their marriages, one of the criteria for some Jewish men is that their brides be below a size 8. And in a move reminiscent of that Ben Stiller movie, sometimes they take the mother’s dress size […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Feminism, Health | 27 Comments »

big fat ad Originally uploaded by mo pie I saw this poster in San Francisco over the weekend, put up by some public health initiative, I believe. Of course I thought of you, and snapped this picture! The first dotted line says “STARTED GOING FOR WALKS DURING LUNCH HOUR.” The second line says “STOPS ORDERING […]

Filed under: Advertising, Fatism, Feminism, Health, Media, Weight Loss | 91 Comments »

I keep thinking about the Mike and Juliet Show segment about fat acceptance. I keep thinking of the comments I get from people who are starting to accept that they don’t have to hate themselves, and how much that inspires me. And then I think about their segment on binge eating disorder. And people—commenters and […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Health | 9 Comments »

In the world of health care, that is. We die sooner, so we cost less! Okay, so that’s not exactly a generalization that anyone around here agrees with, but hell. It’s better than “you fat people are costing me health care money and that’s why it is acceptable that I am shaming you.” Here’s the […]

Filed under: Cold Hard Cash, Health, International, Science | 19 Comments »

Okay, let’s talk about the New York Times piece. I wasn’t interviewed for the article, although I was told there might be a mention, and so I didn’t expect this blog to be featured so prominently, which was a delightful surprise when I saw the masthead in this morning’s paper. On the whole, I thought […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Fat Positive, Fatism, Health, Media, Meta | 88 Comments »

At the gym yesterday, I saw that the Queen Latifah commercial for Jenny Craig is out—so I figured I should follow up on my original post about the issue. There was no sound, though, so I couldn’t hear it. So I just did a quick search and came up with an interview that is mostly […]

Filed under: Advertising, Celebrities, Cold Hard Cash, Exercise, Health, Queen Latifah, Video, Weight Loss | 20 Comments »

…or anywhere else, actually. What diet, you ask? Why, a little something called the Tapeworm Diet. Where, presumably, YOU SWALLOW A FUCKING TAPEWORM. Now I have provided this very short and rudimentary background to helminth therapy to create the idea of “good” worms versus “bad” worms… The beef tapeworm, in addition to immunoregulatory properties, produces […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Food, Health, Science, Weight Loss | 35 Comments »

According to Wired magazine, chewing too much gum can have a laxative effect and cause dramatic weight loss. Given that most weight-loss drugs have a difficult time producing one-pound per week weight loss, you might think the scientists would trumpet these findings as a prelude to the newest blockbuster pharmaceutical. But sadly, the drop in […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Food, Health, Magazines, Tidbit | 12 Comments »

Today, Kristen brought this article to my attention, and it’s good news for those of us who believe in trying to be healthy at every size. Taking exercise, not drinking too much alcohol, eating enough fruit and vegetables and not smoking can add up to 14 years to your life, a study says…The findings held […]

Filed under: Food, Health, International, Science | 16 Comments »

A fascinating story on NPR about exercise and the placebo effect. Researchers studied hotel maids with some pretty incredible results. Apparently, believing that you’re exercising when you’re doing everyday activities can make a real difference. Check it out: [H]otel maids spend the majority of their days lugging heavy equipment around endless hallways. Basically, almost every […]

Filed under: Exercise, Health, Science | 9 Comments »

Melinda sends along this nicely depressing news: fat people are screwed when it comes to organ transplants. Segev’s group found the wait to get a transplant increased along with the patient’s body mass index, a height-weight formula. Non-obese patients waited on average 39 months, the overweight waited 40 months, the obese waited 42 months, and […]

Filed under: Fatism, Health, Science, The Office | 30 Comments »

This New York Times article by Gina Kolata talks about the impossibility of counting calories burned while exercising. Despite the displays on machines at gyms, with their precise-looking calorie counts, and despite the official-looking published charts of exercise and calories, it can be all but impossible to accurately estimate of the number of calories you […]

Filed under: Exercise, Health, Science, Weight Loss | 13 Comments »

This weekend, a car full of us drove to Los Angeles and back. On the return trip, we stopped at In-N-Out Burger, which sparked a conversation about fast food chains. We agreed that while the ubiquitous McDonald’s is not that tempting, In-N-Out is another story. We were happy the only one in town is at […]

Filed under: Advertising, Food, Health, International, Personal, Question | 58 Comments »

Sorry for the missing posts this week! I’ve been working around the clock at both of my jobs, and the lack of sleep has given me a horrible cold. I’ve spent the last few days doped up on cold medicine, sleepy and confused. Fortunately, we’ve got BFDiva Becky to pick up some of my slack. […]

Filed under: Feminism, Health, Kids, Magazines, Personal, Science, Weight Loss | 12 Comments »

Do you have The Fantasy of Being Thin?: I’ve written several times about how I spent ages in the cognitive dissonance phase, thinking it made perfect sense that the OBESITY CRISIS hype was way overblown, and even if it weren’t, dieting doesn’t work anyway — but still wanting to lose weight, still feeling like I, […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Health, Tidbit, Weight Loss | 8 Comments »

There’s a new blog in town called First, Do No Harm: Real Stories of Fat Prejudice in Health Care. They’re soliciting your stories, so if you have any fat prejudice stories, now you know where to send them. Here’s a sample: She gave me a 30 minute lecture about people “your size” and how it […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Fat Positive, Health, Personal, Question | 31 Comments »

Well, there’s a first time for everything. Welcome to our first post about baseball! Renee sends along this article about Red Sox player Curt Schilling, who has just signed a contract that gives him $333,333 once a month for six months if he “passes” a random weigh-in; that is, if he maintains his weight. Renee […]

Filed under: Cold Hard Cash, Exercise, Health | 11 Comments »

In order to lose weight, a significant percentage of British women turn to drastic measures… like cocaine. And that’s not the only shocking statistic in this little (not at all scientific) poll! Thirty seven per cent had taken slimming pills, 15 per cent had taken speed or cocaine and 26 per cent had used laxatives […]

Filed under: Feminism, Health, International, Meta, Weight Loss | 12 Comments »

I’ve noticed that the BFD readers I know who have lost a lot of weight without surgery (such as Pasta Queen) and kept it off have done it on the South Beach diet. Passed along by Kari, this New York Times article reviews the new book Good Calories, Bad Calories, theorizing that carbs, not fat, […]

Filed under: Food, Health, Science, Weight Loss | 34 Comments »