I hadn’t seen the show, so I went and checked out some clips to get a feel for what it is like. There seems to be a range of fat experience here: some women have lost weight, some are dieting, some are very accepting of themselves. Many of them are matter-of-fact about their bodies, and have seemingly learned to blame the clothes, not themselves, if something doesn’t work. And of course, some are less confident, or apprehensive about the whole experience. Some hate trying clothes on; one woman admitted she hadn’t worn a dress in 20 years. The people helping them seem to be pretty positive and encouraging. (Although after watching a bunch of these videos, I still haven’t seem them find one dress that isn’t strapless, what is up with that.) (I also suddenly feel like getting married all over again in a giant white poofy strapless dress. Maybe I’ve watched too many clips in a row.)

So, have you ever seen the show? Do you have any advice for Laurie? Check out the clips below and let us know in the comments what you think. And good luck, Laurie! Let us know when the episode airs!

Hi there! I recently came across your blog and love it! Thank you so much for speaking up for the big girls!

My best friend is getting married in October and we are having a horrible time finding any actual stores that carry wedding dresses in sizes over 26. She doesn’t want to order one online and take the chance that it wont fit right (because you know, it’s bad enough you have no right to try it on in a store…when it doesn’t fit, you can’t return it). She wants to have the experience of trying a dress on in a store. She wants the fairy tale, I suppose, of walking in to a high end shop, being waited on and catered to. She wants a beautiful gown, not something my great aunt Mary wore to Easter dinner in 1983. As a women of size, people think that the size 37 on her tag means she’s willing to settle for anything.

After calling a few local stores and being told she’d “never find anything,” I vowed not to let this happen for her. However, after months of finding nothing, I am worried that these horrible people are right. We live in NE Ohio which is not the most progressive or fashionable part of the country. But we are willing to road trip to be able to give this awesome friend the experience she wants. Any ideas? Any and all help is much appreciated!

I hope you can find a place within driving distance; if it exists, I know the BFD readers will find it! However, I think that ordering dresses online and returning the ones that don’t fit may end up having to be the solution here. That’s also what I did for my non-traditional, non-weddingy wedding, and it worked out great! For a more traditional look, Igigi has lovely options, and they do let you return them. Readers also offered suggestions here a few years ago.

If that ends up being the case, who says your friend can’t have the fairy tale experience anyway? You can take charge of ordering and sending back dresses, so she doesn’t have to deal with any of it. Then turn your house into the dressing room–invite some friends over, set up mirrors everywhere, pour some champagne, serve some scones, fuss over her, take pictures of her in the dresses, vote on the best one. That sounds more fun to me than a bridal boutique, anyway!

Readers, any suggestions for boutiques and online retailers will be welcome, I’m sure. And Jessica, let us know what your friend ends up wearing!

I have friends who have had home births and hypnobirths and sexytime births, none of which is super appealing. Although I would like a doula (fingers crossed that the one we’re talking to right now has a space for us) I also want to be in a hospital near medical equipment because I think that’s where I will feel safest. Also because I am “elderly” (36) and because I enjoy modern medicine. (I am hoping it’s modern enough to involve pain medication [if I need it] without the use of needles. They’ve invented that, right? Where the medicine is just licked on by kittens?)

I am also told labor is very physical and hard work and all that stuff. I’m worried about physically handling labor and childbirth, particularly since I’m fat. And right now, I can barely even breathe because my uterus is crammed up against my lungs. So I’m not exactly feeling at my peak fitness at the moment, which does not boost my confidence any.

Oh, and I would like a room with a jacuzzi tub. (These do exist at the hospital, by the way! My husband thinks the idea of a tub is crazy, and likes to joke that he’ll get in and start ordering cocktails while I’m having the baby. This is not actually a real representation of what he will do. But I do love water and I will take any kind of tub they have got going on.)

Any or all of these ideas may change as our childbirth class progresses and we learn more about our options, but that’s what I’ve got so far. In the meantime, if you have a good birth experience story, please share in the comments! Help me with my homework.

Gestational Diabetes

I had my one-hour glucose test a few weeks ago. (I am… wait, I can’t be 31 weeks today… can I? Well, it was at week 26.) In the days leading up to the test, I was convinced that I was likely to fail it. (A lot of people fail the one-hour test even if they don’t end up with gestational diabetes.) Why was I so convinced? I guess I assumed that since I’m fat, I would probably end up having gestational diabetes. I am also very thirsty all the time and drink water constantly, which is a normal pregnancy symptom, but again, I jumped to the diabetes conclusion. And finally, I’ve been eating way more sugar than usual since I’ve been pregnant. I crave carbs of all kinds: fruits, breads, chocolate, donuts, pop tarts.

[As an aside, I used to envision that I would be a beatific model of healthy eating when I was pregnant. But I'm here to tell you, physically speaking, pregnancy sucks, and you do what you have to do to get through it. I spent a lot of time so nauseous that only a specific, limited number of foods appealed to me at all. A lot of my healthy staples (notably turkey sandwiches and tuna fish) are on the Do Not Eat or Eat More Rarely list. And most importantly, it's a tossup as to what I can stomach at any given moment. It's actually been very liberating, because if someone sees me eating a donut or whatever, whereas I might have gotten slightly defensive about it in the past, these days it's like eff you, I'm pregnant, I can do what I want. It's been the key to helping me really let go of food guilt. I haven't felt guilty about food for months.]

Anyway, I’m sure you can see where this is going: I passed the one-hour glucose test, no problem. And then I felt really dumb for all my dumb assumptions. Of course, if I had developed gestational diabetes, would I have blamed genetics, or blamed myself? Clearly, I should have read this first. The bottom line is that there is an increased risk for gestational diabetes in obese mothers, but the overall risk is still fairly low.

Weight Loss In Pregnancy

The next pregnancy hurdle was my last OB appointment, where I discovered I’d lost 10 pounds between appointments. In fact, so far at seven+ months of pregnancy, I’m down 15 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. My doctor did some measurements and was very reassuring, but sent me for an ultrasound just to double check. At the ultrasound, we discovered that the baby is measuring right on schedule and is in fact in the 50th percentile for weight. Exactly, perfectly average and normal and lovely. So as long as I keep taking my prenatal vitamin and eating a varied diet (yes, I swear there are veggies and protein in there) things seem to be on the right track. Yay and yay!

Baby Bump Question

Even though I’m 31 (???!?) weeks pregnant, I don’t have an obvious baby bump. I mean I do have a bigger stomach and am waddling around, but the average person on the street is unlikely to assume that I’m pregnant, and certainly nobody has asked about or commented on it. I had to announce my pregnancy to my classes at the beginning of the semester, since I didn’t want them to awkwardly wonder all semester if I was pregnant. Many of my thinner friends have obvious little baby bumps; I just have a general westward expansion.

This has actually saved me from one thing, which is people touching my stomach. I wasn’t big on people touching my stomach before I got pregnant, and I’m certainly no more enthusiastic about it now. But this weekend I’m going to a couple of baby showers with people who know I’m pregnant and may want to touch my stomach. I really don’t want them to; in fact, I was up last night worrying about handsy relatives or my over-enthusiastic parents, and how to set appropriate boundaries with crazy Dutch people.

I’m guessing this isn’t just a fat person thing, but curious to know what you guys think: did you mind people touching your belly while you were pregnant? And if you did, how did you handle it?

First question: do I need and will I use a rocking chair or glider? If so, is there one that you recommend as being sturdy and comfortable? Or should I just go to the… rocking chair store…? Yeah, I have no idea.

Second question: baby carriers and slings. My friend Jen suggested going to Babies R’ Us or what have you and trying on various types, which I think is a good idea; the other thing I know is that different babies like different carriers, and we most likely won’t know what Wigburg likes until Wigburg is here to express her preference. But is there a particular style of carrier that works or doesn’t work for a larger body?

And final question: diaper bags. I tend to like a messenger bag with a long strap, but occasionally when I order messenger bags, the straps aren’t long enough. anyone have one you like that has a nice long strap?

If there’s anything else that you’ve found to be a baby essential, fat-related or not, let me know! It’s a little overwhelming to stare at 20 different subcategories of baby stuff and figure out where to begin. Thanks in advance for your input!

Because they are never JUST shoes. They’re what I was, for a long time, allowed – when you’re fat and your options are limited, sometimes shoes become the thing you use to express yourself…

It’s one of the only areas in which I’ve ever had just as much choice as any other person on the street when it comes to things required for getting dressed. And that’s a powerful thing. It’s one reason I have what feels like so many shoes. It’s one reason I have so many DISTINCTIVE shoes – it matters less that my fashion options are limited if I can make a statement with my shoes.

In her post, Marianne acknowledges that this is only possible for those who wear a readily available size shoe. And this reminded me I’ve been meaning to do a post for those of us who, like me, don’t wear a common shoe size.

I have always been tall and had large feet—I was wearing a size 9 shoe when I was 13. And of course, Persons of Size also sometimes have wider than average feet. All of this means we can’t walk into a shoe store and expect to find something that fits. Except Payless which, god bless em, goes up to a 12 and has wide widths, to boot. (HA! TO BOOT!) But, you know, Payless shoes do tend to fall apart sometimes.

So, what are our options? We can search Zappos by size or width, paying close attention to the customer notes in the comments (some brands tend to run large or small) which allows us to hit shoes at a variety of price points.

As for specific designers, Fluevogs go up to size 13, and they have some “unisex” styles as well. I know Weetabix has gotten Stuart Weitzmans and Guccis in size 12 at Nordstrom (which is currently having a “free shipping on shoes” sale). She’s the fancy Nordstrom shoe shopper, whereas I am the Payless shoe shopper.

And in this comment, Lisa mentioned that drag queen shops usually have women’s shoes in generous sizes. (Well, they would.) So if you need a red leather stiletto boot in a size 15, this is your lucky day.

So, how about it? Ladies with Feet of Size, which brands work for you, and where do you buy them?

…One in four female characters was depicted in “sexy, tight, or alluring attire,” compared with one in 25 male characters. The female characters were also more likely than men to be beautiful, and one in five were “portrayed with some exposed skin between the mid-chest and upper thigh regions.” Because you wouldn’t want to take on the world without baring your midriff—girl power! (Another study found, troublingly, that women in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as women in R-rated films.) One in four women was shown with a waist so small that, the authors concluded, it left “little room for a womb or any other internal organs.” Maybe we could carry them in our purses?

No wonder young girls are reporting body image issues earlier and earlier.  Not only are fat females treated by the filmmakers as lesser or non-sexual grandmothers, but the girls we’re supposed to emulate are hyper-sexualized with giant Hentai eyes and Angelina Jolie pouts. And to think we all blamed Bratz dolls!

You know, I honestly cannot think of a sympathetic fat female human character in an animated kid’s movie.  There were fat people in Wall-E, of course, but it was pretty offensive stereotyping.  I think Mrs. Potts eventually turns into a fat human, but for the majority of Beauty and the Beast, she’s tableware.  Arguably, one of Sleeping Beauty’s fairy friends is a plus-sized fairy, but that movie is old than my grandmother. Likewise, Hyacinth the Hippo. Dora the Explorer isn’t a svelte lass, but she’s also like six. And there are never fat princesses.

Then there’s Ursula the Sea Witch. Love her.

You know, she’s the first fat villian who really has some power. The other fat girls in Disney movies are either fairy godmothers (who twitter a lot) or singing teapots. Up until Ursula, the female villians were all tall, angular women with pinched faces (Cruella DeVille; the Wicked StepMother in Snow White; the aunt with the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp; Maleficient, who is also awesome for rocking that head gear) and she ends up embodying ultimate power (and, you know, getting stabbed by a boat, but whatevs).

But the fact remains that Ursula is still evil, and definitely not sympathetic. In fact, the only plus-sized female main character in recent memory is Princess Fiona, who is introduced to us first as being thin and Cameron Diaz-y and then her plus-size state is explained by her having been cursed. Seriously. Cursed! And the only reason she ends up being ok with her state is the fact that her man loves her best when she’s all green and belchy.

Let’s discuss in the comments!

Unless she is not confident, because those people are hideous even if they are supermodels! Or so I have been told by very many well-meaning people. (Sorry, that was a bit derailish. Venting from the time I tried to get someone to rephrase “confidence makes you 1000x more beautiful” to “confidence helps people see your beauty” so that I wouldn’t have to conclude that I am hopelessly ugly, and she was all, “NO! Confidence is vital to beauty!” So remember, kids, the thing to tell people who are insecure about their looks is that their insecurity makes them disgusting.)

I’ve advocated confidence myself, plenty of times. (Just check out the “related posts” links for evidence.) It feels like in my own life, confidence has been an asset to me. But this is such an interesting angle from which to look at the idea of confidence. What if you’re not confident? Does that make you a failure? Are we oppressing people by suggesting that they “should” become more confident?

Also, saying that “every woman is beautiful” made me think of Lesley’s recent piece on appearance-based privilege, wherein she suggests that perhaps we don’t need to feel beautiful or even believe we’re beautiful to have fulfilling lives:

[F]or me, there was tremendous freedom in surrendering the idea that subjectively feeling — if not objectively being — beautiful was a requirement of a happy and fulfilling life. This is not to suggest that people shouldn’t feel good about themselves, or even “pretty”, as the occasion warrants — my point is that this feeling should not be the necessity and the compulsion that it is, and that when it occurs, it should neither be underscored nor negated by the response of the majority, according to what masculine doctrine finds most valuable. Wanting to feel pretty, to appreciate and value oneself as a beautiful person, is a fine notion. Confronting, deconstructing, and redefining what counts as beauty is a valiant effort. But we should also be vigilant: is it personal gratification and self-love we’re after, or the advantages that being beautiful to others would afford us?

So, what do you guys think about confidence? Is it okay if we don’t have it?

Hello all, I’m Lisa. I’m 32, 5’4″ short and weigh about 300lbs (it fluctuates). Would that I could say that I have the blessing of an hourglass shape, but no. I’m one of the fat girls ‘blessed’ with a rather large belly. Of the spare 170lbs I’m toting around, I’d guess that 50-75% of it is concentrated in my stomach. Any one have tips on how to dress for that shape?

So, any fashion tips for Lisa, and all the other apple shapes out there? Links to the Fatshionista photo stream are welcome!

Dear BFD,

First, thanks for adding an Ask BFD category. I love your blog and the FA blogosphere so much- I wish I’d known about it in high school! :) Reading these blogs are very rewarding, but yet difficult for me because of cognitive dissonance. How can you be a fat positive advocate, and a good friend and influence when it comes to body positivity for the people around you, when you still struggle with accepting yourself?

Obviously, the world we live in is still very judgmental, which is what a lot of blogs often discuss. My problem, though, is just as often me. Being college-age now, my sister and some of my dearest friends struggle with eating disorders, so body positivity and self-esteem are an important issue for me. But as someone who struggled with eating disorders herself, and who still sometimes -hates- her body at a ‘healthy BMI’, and what most people would call an average size- I often feel fatter now than when I was
obese- how can I counsel self-love without being a hypocrite? How can you keep from triggering the people around you when you’re trying to keep losing weight yourself?

I am the biggest HAES advocate believer you can imagine, and the last thing I want to do is spread any more negative energy into the world. I am a radical liberal and feminist, and many of the women I personally find attractive are bigger than me- Beth Ditto is one of the most fashionable, inspiring, and talented women I have ever seen, for instance, and I have the most monstrous crush on Hayley Hasselhoff from Huge. But this just doesn’t transfer to my own behavior and self-image. I want to be a good role model to the girls around me, and I think my problem is one a lot more common than some people think. The only analogy I can think of is being straight in a gay pride parade, except it’s probably closer to being a secretly self-hating gay- how can you support this cause when you’re one of those girls who are technically the ‘enemy?’

I know I’m a work in progress, and I try every day to become a happier, more self-loving person, but eating disorders don’t just go away just like that, or even just the puerile teenage insecurities every woman’s faced sometimes. Thanks for reading this, and I’d love any advice on how to still be an advocate for others, even with my own problems. Most of all, I love my sister more than anything, and I fear the effect I have on her sometimes. Does anyone else have this problem, and what do you do? Thanks for your time!

Gratefully,
Barnardgirl

This is such a great question, Barnardgirl, and thanks for sending it in!

First of all, I think you’re making an assumption that isn’t true: that somehow, all FA advocates are perfect models of self-esteem and self-love. I don’t think there’s anyone out there who doesn’t still struggle with these issues sometimes. I still “feel fat” and unattractive sometimes, I still get my feelings hurt by petty fatism, I still have a semi-disordered relationship with food—I’m not immune, and I honestly don’t think anyone is.

So, be careful with things like calling yourself “the enemy.” You’re fighting a lifetime of messages that there’s something wrong with your body, and at least you’re thinking about these issues. You’re doing the best you can.

So, first of all, I would advise you to keep doing what you’re already doing—read and participate in blogs like this one and other feminist and fatosphere blogs, replace Cosmo and Vogue with Ms. and Fatshionista, and keep working on internalizing emotionally what you’ve already accepted intellectually.

As for your sister, I have a sister myself, and I appreciate your desire to be a good role model for her, as well as for your friends. All I can say is, resist the urge to participate in Fat Talk as a form of bonding, keep preaching the gospel of HAES and modeling it as best you can, and keep reading for the readers’ advice in the comments. Readers—what advice can you give Barnardgirl?