Weight Loss Winners Woo!

Us Magazine has a slideshow of the “weight winners of the year“—naturally, the stars who have lost weight this year! And look great! Woo! And they’re all women. OF COURSE. Because who cares if men gain or lose weight? Nobody! Woo!
Stars include J. Love, Ricki Lake, Kim Locke, Vanessa Williams, and multiple women [...]

Post-Pro-Ana

You’ve probably heard of pro-ana groups online. They’re pro-anorexia groups where people, mostly young girls, of course, go to share their sources of “thinspiration” and talk about their strategies for ingesting the bare minimum of calories. Well now there’s We Bite Back, a post-pro-ana group dedicated to helping and supporting people who are recovering [...]

How Do Girls Develop Body Image?

A study released yesterday attempts to answer that important question, dividing adolescent girls into groups like “Jocks,” “Burnouts,” and “Alternatives,” and discovering that their peer groups are the most important deciding factor. From the press release:
The central theme of the study is that peer groups of teenage girls best determine their attitude towards their [...]

Celebrity Offspring Bans The Word “Fat”

Saw this tidbit about Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s son James (who I believe is 5 years old) and his hate of the word “fat.”
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker have been banned from using the word `fat’ at home - by their politically correct young son. Little James Wilke insists the word [...]

12-Year-Old Asks What She’s “Doing Wrong”

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 [...]

Fat Kids Picking On Thin Kids

It must be childhood obesity week. On the heels of the news about the possible plateu in child obesity comes a comic from The Joy of Tech called “Fat Kids, The New Norm.” The comic depicts five kids, four of whom are fat, taunting a fifth child, who is thin. The fat kids [...]

Wednesday Open Thread

Here’s your open thread, with a tidbit to kick off discussion:
One lovely girl whose weight was normal told us: “I don’t like my body shape because I think I look really fat”, and a lot of girls wanted to look like the most underweight child on the chart… Pointing to the picture of an [...]

I Believe The Bratz Dolls Are Our Future

In the spirit of Michael Apted’s Up series, a documentary is following the lives of children born in the year 2000 until they’re 20. Obviously, here and now, they’re around seven years old, giving us a glimpse into the lives of the millennial generation. Here’s the part that struck me especially:
These seven year old [...]

Wii Fit

I admit; I really want a Wii. And I think the idea of the Wii Fit is awesome; one of the advantages of having a Wii is that it keeps you moving around while you’re playing games. So then why do I find this article vaguely sexist and irritating? Because the Wii Fit is [...]

A Fate Worse Than Fat

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 [...]

Teenage Bulimic Asks Us For Help

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 matter [...]

“A Perfect Size 4″

When I was in junior high, I read V.C. Andrews and The Baby-sitters Club, not Sweet Valley High. I do remember seeking out the one where someone named, I think, Regina dies of a cocaine overdose. But beyond that, I wasn’t interested. I just couldn’t relate to Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. I was neither [...]

What’s Your Score?

Sometimes I feel that items for this blog are self-explanatory. Like the description of this Japanese video game.
A young woman who was once svelte and lovely has binged on too many sweets and pastries. As a result of extreme indulgence, her waistline has blossomed and her weight has surpassed 220lbs (100kg). When she reaches [...]

Our 14-Year-Old Responds

We posted her question and answered it right here, and Shapely Prose got into the act right here. The original e-mailer has written back, and I’ll let her speak for herself.
Wow. I don’t know what to say. Usually when I reach out for help I don’t get a response. But then I [...]

“The Beautiful People Are The Skinny People”

I got this e-mail a couple of days ago, and have been thinking all weekend about possible answers. This is the heart of why I write this blog: to help girls just like this 14-year-old to stop hating themselves. But how? After agonizing about how to answer this, I thought maybe I’d just [...]

Good Foods, Bad Foods

So, you may have heard about the ridiculous bill being proposed in Mississippi that would weigh people at the doors of restaurants and then refuse service to the obese. Because fat people should be prohibited from eating entirely, obviously. GREAT IDEA!
A suggestion has now been made to modify the bill and apply it only [...]

The Fat Suit Zeitgeist

Maybe we can declare this fat suit week at Big Fat Deal! We talked about J. Love in a fat suit (in the wake of Tom Cruise and Posh Spice fat suit news, oh god, is this a trend or what) and now, there’s more!
First of all, there’s a Santa in Scotland who is [...]

Our Bodies, Our Ideal Selves

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 [...]

Pregnant Barbie

I’m labeling this a Feel Good Friday post because it makes me feel good to say that my dear friend Christine, proud member of my wedding’s Butt Bow Brigade, is having a baby in May. And she’s apparently begun the oh-so-fun (or so I hear) process of finding maternity clothes. I assured her [...]

Childhood Rape Linked To Obesity

There’s no way really to put a positive spin or a clever title on this bit of research, which shows a link between childhood rape and obesity in women.
Researchers surveyed about 2,500 men and women aged 21 and found 7.5 % had had intercourse against their will before the age of 16. While the [...]