Can You Be Overweight, Yet “Truly Happy”?

Jessica at Jezebel wrote a while back about the Glamour magazine diet blog Margarita Shapes Up.
What’s disconcerting is the anxious tone that has crept into her posts in recent weeks, culminating in a post about leaving her dad’s birthday party early so that she could go to yoga. It’s clear that she feels a great [...]

How Do You Accessorize?

I was shopping this weekend, and it got me thinking about the way that I’ve often walked into stores that carry sizes that are unlikely to fit me (often while shopping with thinner friends) and headed straight for the accessories: sparkly jewelry, hats, bags, scarves. All the things that are (that dreaded phrase) “one size [...]

How Much Exercise Do You Get?

This news article landed in my inbox shortly after I’d read this very funny post at Shapely Prose, and both got me thinking about exercise.
At Shapely Prose, Kate writes about a recent article asserting that people who are predisposed to being overweight can avoid being overweight by exercising a mere three to four [...]

Treats At The Office

We had an office party today involving cake. And as I stood around with my co-workers making awkward conversation and enjoying my slice of cake, I overheard comments that felt very familiar.
“This cake is sugar free and fat free, right? Ha, ha!”
“Hey [Guy Doing South Beach], is this South Beach cake?”
“Oh, can I just have [...]

Let’s Hear It From The Boys

Recently I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the male perspective on size acceptance. There seems to have been a recent uptick in men commenting on this blog, and I have more than one male friend who has been known to make disparaging comments about his body size.
In response to my recent assertion [...]

Who Is The Mole?: Fat On Reality TV

My favorite reality show that nobody but me and Kim watches is The Mole. (The first host of the show was the amazing Anderson Cooper; the current host, Jon Kelley, is equally fabulous and hot. You heard it here first.)
The premise of the show is that a dozen or so contestants are competing [...]

This Entire Post Is Probably TMI

It’s true that culturally, the responsibility for having an adequately-sized sexual organ is all on the guy, but a growing movement is noticing that hey, it’s not like a vagina only comes in petite. One girl’s hooha might be snug while another girl might get labeled as “cavernous” by guys in private. After all, it [...]

The Exercise Pill

I think it was Ian who first pointed me to this article in The New York Times about the development of an exercise pill, although the conversation seems to have exploded everywhere. Let’s hop on that bandwagon! First, from the NYT article:
Aicar signals to the cell that it has burned off energy and [...]

If You Can’t Trust Macaroni Grill, Who Can You Trust?

I’m suspicious, in general, of nutrition information provided by restaurants. The lowfat ice cream cone at McDonald’s is supposedly 150 calories, but I’ve had them hand me a cone that was piled so high with swirls that it was about to tip over, the dairy equivalent of a game of Jenga. I know full [...]

A Perfect Ten: Does Your Partner Love Your Body?

We all know that there is no such thing as an “ideal beauty,” right? And that we women shouldn’t define ourselves or our self-worth according to what men find sexy, right? It is with this disclaimer in place, then, that I tell you the preferred body type for men, according to this survey (link NSFW) [...]

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 [...]

Your Food Likes And Dislikes

Over the weekend, I was thinking about traditionally “healthy” or “unhealthy” foods. You know, the old “good” and “bad” foods, if we were assigning morality to food, which we totally are not doing. I was thinking about the “healthy” foods I love and those I hate, and the “unhealthy” foods I love and [...]

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 [...]

Q&A With PastaQueen

Jennette Fulda, better known as PastaQueen, may have lost a couple hundred or so pounds, but she’s been a commenter on and visitor to Big Fat Deal for a long time. On a blog tour for her memoir, Half of Me, she offered to stop by and answer the toughest questions I could come up [...]

How Do Strangers Treat You?

I’ve read a lot of blogs and books and heard a lot of anecdotal evidence from people who have lost weight, especially a great deal of weight, talking about the radical difference in how they are treated when they’re fat versus when they’re thin. (You also hear this from celebrities who have put on and [...]

What’s For Lunch?

I’m fried at work today and I spent the morning at the dentist, so here’s a random post off the top of my head. I always love hearing what Jane Espenson is having for lunch, so let’s find out what’s on the menu for the rest of us today!
I don’t even have a great [...]

The Goldilocks Paradox

There’s a conversation going on in the comments about whether some people look better when they’re heavier. The discussion started with Rhonwyn’s comment right here:
[w]hile I’m on the subject of Queen Latifah and losing weight: do any of you think some people just look better when they’re heavier? I hardly recognized Star Jones after her [...]

Fat And Diabetic (No Relation)

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 [...]

OMGWTFBBW!!

Ezinearticles.com just made a list of the “Top 40 BBWs of all time.” Sounds good, right? Sure, until you get to the list, and you realize that some of the women on it are not all what most people would consider “BBW”s. Mo’nique, Camryn Manheim, Mama Cass, Rosie O’Donnell… sure. But Jamie [...]

“I’m A Fat Woman Trapped In A Normal Body”

I’m loving the reader questions and the BFDivas’ and BFDudes’ answers—keep ‘em coming! Today’s question comes from Loren, who writes:
In the last year I went from 235lbs to 185. I just took up running and moved to a country where I hate the food, the weight loss was not really intentional. I liked [...]