We’ve spoken a lot about Health At Any Size, the myth of the fat lazy person and why BMI is bogus so it does my heart good to see an official stamp of approval from the government. Check it: “…We can be healthy and fit at any size or any weight.”

While Dr. Benjamin isn’t coming right out as a fat advocate, she definitely takes a shot at the media for its doom and gloom finger pointing at the fat rampage so-called obesity epidemic. The winds of change are blowing, BFDivas and BFDudes!

(Via Big Fat Blog)

Posted by Weetabix

Filed under: Advocacy, Exercise, Video, Weetabix | 13 Comments »

Beth Ditto recently walked the runway in a Jean Paul Gaultier show, and she looks fabulous.

Gaultier is, of course, the same designer who used Velvet D’Amour in a previous runway show. More pictures at HuffPo, where they pair the slideshow with this recent quote from Ditto:

“It’s really interesting to me that people will look at a thin person and go, ‘That’s a healthy person’. I want to go, ‘Come open my refrigerator and look and then let’s talk about what you think is so bad’. To be thin and to stay really thin, sometimes…some people literally do coke all the time. Some people smoke cigarettes instead of eating. That’s crazy. But that’s ‘okay’ because you look healthier.”

Thanks to Christina for the link! And thanks to Beth, and Jean Paul Gaultier, for being awesome.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Beth Ditto, Celebrities, Fashion, Fat Positive, Tidbit | 13 Comments »

The other day, I got an email that touched me deeply. Mel was kind enough to allow me to repost it here. In our email conversation, we both agreed that a huge part of why BFD means so much to so many people is the community that has been created here. So this is a thank you from Mel to us, and a thank you from me to you: thank you so much for helping make this blog what it is.

Well. I’m not entirely sure how to start this, so I suppose I’ll begin at (what’s more or less) the beginning.

A couple of days ago, I was . . . down. Not for any particular reason; nothing especially momentous or even noteworthy had happened, I hadn’t been the victim of any fat-based insults or disgusted/pitying/mocking looks. When it comes right down to it, I just felt fat. That’s all. I felt fat and ugly and basically worthless. While I’d love to say that this is something unusual, it’s really not.

I’ve been heavy my entire life. Yes, heavy. No, not fat. Because looking back now, with a sense of perspective that you can really only achieve years after the fact, I wasn’t fat. Actually, I was pretty damn cute. I never felt that way, despite the fact that my family (and family friends) continually told me that I was. I knew the truth, though–when I went to school I got teased for being fat, and I didn’t look like the other girls there or the girls and women on TV, and surely society as a whole wouldn’t be constantly telling me I was fat if it wasn’t actually true, right? And the people who loved me, the very ones who told me that I was cute, wouldn’t all echo that sentiment if it wasn’t true. Would they? Of course not. They loved me, they were concerned, and I was Fat. I had no reason to doubt all those well-intentioned voices.

As it turns out (as I’m sure you know), living your entire life Fat doesn’t mean that it gets easier to deal with. I keep capitalizing the word because that’s always how it sounded when I heard it. I was Big, Overweight, Fat. (I have the most insane urge right now to start calling myself a Person of Weight. Apparently emotional vulnerability brings out my snark? Not terribly surprising, I guess.) The gist of all this being: most times I’m more or less fine, but sometimes twenty-seven years of insecurities and self-esteem issues all seem to hit me at once, and things are bad for a while. It’s nothing new, but it sucks just as much every time.

So, yes. I was having one of those days, and for reasons now lost to me in the whirl of whatever the hell was going on in my head at the time, I decided for the first time that I would look online to see if there was somewhere out there where people understood. People who had lived with being Fat, and who knew all the millions of tiny ways that you were constantly reminded of it and the damage–mental, emotional, even physical–that it could cause. Surely, I thought, there had to be something out there. The internet is so huge! So many tubes! Some of them must be big enough for us.

My initial results were less than encouraging. It seemed like every blog I found about Being Fat was, well, not. They were about Not Being Fat, about struggles to lose weight and look good and let me tell you it wasn’t helping my mood any. I’ve dieted and exercised and lost weight, but I can never seem to keep it off. I always “backslide” at some point into poor eating habits and inactivity, always pack what I’ve shed right back on again. So no, I’m sorry Random Internet Ladies, I’m sure you’re lovely but I didn’t want to read about your struggles against your own weight. What I wanted was someone talking about still being Fat, and how they dealt with that. I wanted someone to tell me that maybe, just maybe, it was still okay. I was beginning to think I’d never find it, though, when suddenly I followed a link and found your blog and . . . oh.

Oh.

It was like a light being turned on. Here were these women–clearly intelligent, definitely funny, quite attractive women–who were telling me things I’d always secretly hoped but never really believed. That not only was it possible to be bigger than the “ideal” we’re fed and still be healthy, you can be healthy when you’re bigger than “average”, as well. That I didn’t have to be ashamed just because of my weight. That I was deserving and worthy and beautiful, and anyone who tried to tell me otherwise could fuck right off. I read posts about self-confidence, about the media’s acceptance of “fatism”, about fashion, about women I had always thought were beautiful “even though” they weren’t as thin as society apparently thinks we all should be. (Crystal Renn. Seriously. There are just no words.) There were posts about being conflicted, torn between irritation/outrage at the continued exploitation of Fatness for the sake of a punchline, and wondering if that was just taking things too seriously. There were some posts that I could’ve written, and some that I could’ve written if I were smarter and better informed. Insight and humor and acceptance from people who didn’t think I was less worthy just because of how I look.

I’ve been reading back through the entries pretty much nonstop for the past two days (excepting tedious breaks for things like “work” and “sleep”). I’m at the beginning of 2009 now, and I plan to keep going. Because you took a girl who really believed that she was less because she was more, and made her think . . . maybe that’s not true. Maybe I don’t have to wait to be thin to feel pretty. Maybe I don’t have to look in the mirror before going out and think, “Good enough.” Maybe I am already beautiful, already sexy. And wouldn’t that be something?

I won’t pretend that everything is fixed now. It will still be hard; I know it will. I’ll still have moments, or hours, or days when other people’s disapproval will outweigh (pun not intended, but not really regretted, either) my own hard-won self-acceptance. But tonight I put on some pretty clothes and some girly shoes and some sexy red lipstick; I went out with my friends, and looked at art, and had fun. I ate and drank without stressing over what other people were thinking when they saw me. I felt good, and confident, and yes, pretty. Desirable.

Tonight I wasn’t Fat; I was fat. And that was okay.

So . . . thanks.

Sincerely yours,
Mel

She also reposted this letter at her Livejournal, where a terrific conversation is also going on. Thanks so much for sharing this, Mel.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Feel Good Friday, Meta | 17 Comments »

Over at The Rotund, Marianne recently posted a piece about the normalizing power of shoe shopping.

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?

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Question | 52 Comments »

With a special shout-out to Brianna, here are some links that popped up in Google Reader this week!

1. From Feed Me: Fat women are paid less than men in the workplace. So obviously, we should lose weight. Wait, what?

Fat women are paid less than women who aren’t fat; fat men, on average, earn comparable salaries to men who aren’t fat. So women are penalized by employers for being fat… All the young women who don’t identify as feminists because they don’t have to fly that flag anymore should take note of studies like this one. Gender discrimination is alive and well in 21st-century America.

But that’s not where the writer of this story went. No, her conclusion was quite different. She wrote, “It’s bad news, but maybe it will help fund better prevention strategies and new treatment methods for this growing scourge.”

Excuse me? Did I hear you right? The answer to discrimination is getting rid of the quality that’s being discriminated against?

2. From Already Pretty: the problem with “she shouldn’t wear that.”

[S]tylistic shoulds and shouldn’ts reinforce the idea that there are absolute rights and wrongs in clothing choices, tastes, and body shapes. Saying a woman “shouldn’t” wear something because of her figure supports the idea that there is one way to look good. And there isn’t. In fact, women who push social comfort levels with their stylistic choices may gradually force the observing public to accept that. Although some may prefer that women with cellulite conceal it, women with bony clavicles mask them, and women with zits apply cover-up, each woman is entitled to make her own choices.

3. The theme of the comp class I’m teaching this semester is feminism (actually, I told them it was unofficially called “F the Patriarchy”—it’s led to some terrific debate and discussion) and I shared this tidbit from Shakesville with them the other day. A headline reads “Man badly burned when girlfriend’s house set on fire” when, in actuality, he was her ex-boyfriend and stalker. And oh yeah, he set the fire.

[A]n amazing example of how violence against women is minimized in news reporting… the violent stalker is badly burned. His intended victims, who merely were doused with gasoline and terrorized, are OK.

4. From Womanist Musings: Gabourey Sidibe as “Mammy.”

There can be no denial that there are some people who will look at Gabourey and see mammy smiling back at them both consciously and unconsciously, yet that is not a function of her, but a function of Whiteness. When we use fat hatred to claim that her success is obscuring the talents of other Black women, we are only playing into the divisive strategy that Whiteness has long used to control people of colour. Even the Black women that some believe are deserving of greater accolades, are still perceived by Whiteness as fitting into either the jezebel or sapphire trope, and therefore; the way to divest ourselves of these horrible caricatures, is not to further demean another Black woman, but to defeat the idea that any of these labels are representative of Black womanhood. The entity that needs to disappear is mammy and not Gabourey.

5. Terrific satirical essay from Lesley about the importance of the “suffering ween.”

The sight of fat women is a heavy cross said men must bear every moment they step out into the public spaces where people congregate, be they city streets or shopping malls or public transportation or the dentist’s office. Their eyes burning as though filled with a raging fire, their inability to control their speech — the inescapable, uncontrollable need to instruct the offending woman on the pain she is selfishly causing them — this is hardly their fault! They must say something, in the hope that their words will drive the fat woman back into the shadows and thereby cause the unthinkable torture being imposed upon their enfeebled weens to finally relent. They cannot be responsible for the things they say and do while in such agony. We cannot rightly blame them when it is men, and the relative rigidity of their supremely important peckers, who are being attacked here, attacked by fat women who dare to allow themselves to be seen.

Pretty awesome collection of links, am I right? Let’s discuss in the comments!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: BFDudes, Celebrities, Cold Hard Cash, Fashion, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Gabby Sidibe, Humor, Links, Personal, Work | 4 Comments »

Apparently I’m on a movie kick, but I couldn’t resist sharing this great article in Newsweek exploring the subtle sexism in recent kid movies.

…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!

Posted by Weetabix

Filed under: Disney, Fatism, Feminism, Kids, Movies, Question, Weetabix | 48 Comments »

We’ve talked about how much we love Mindy Kaling here before. In this great interview, she talks about the problem with writing realistic women characters and the rom-com she’s writing and how much she loves You’ve Got Mail (me TOO! OMG Mindy Kaling, let’s be bffs!) She touches upon this interesting trope of the fictionalized woman, something that bugs me too:

How did you feel about The Devil Wears Prada? Did it bug you that the main character walked away from a good job at the end, to go back to her boyfriend — like that was the only way she could be happy?
I felt like they tried to buy it back by saying what she really wanted was to write political pieces at her temp job. That was a hokey part of the story. At least she wasn’t a klutz. So many comedies and TV shows make pretty, skinny women klutzes — they have no discernible flaws, so let’s make them a klutz!

Like Liz Lemon.
Debra Messing was always doing that on Will & Grace. (Ed note–Also, basically any character played by Michelle Pfeiffer, J.Lo and more recently, Kristen Bell)

It’s such an old trope.
The other one is actresses who clearly starve themselves playing characters who get picked on by the guy for eating too much.

In Valentine’s Day, the Jessica Biel character does that. When she gets nervous she shoves food into her mouth. Of course, it’s okay for Biel to do that because she’s in the best shape of any woman alive, so shoving food in her mouth isn’t offensive.
It would be so funny if an actual fat woman shoved food in her mouth. People would be horrified! They’d want to kill her! Is that an Onion headline? Actual Fat Woman Shoves Food in her Mouth in Romantic Comedy!

She’s right! When did you last see a fat woman eating in a movie when it wasn’t a fat joke? Even in Shallow Hal (which I watched recently… so close and yet, so fucking far) when they show the fat character eating, it’s Gwyneth Paltrow not Gwyneth-In-A-Fat-Suit-Paltrow. How are we ever supposed to get over the idea of body shame when the very idea of us nourishing our bodies is clearly revolting to the rest of the world?

This is too depressing, so instead, I’ll just leave the rest to you guys in the comments.

PS. Marry me, Mindy Kaling?

Posted by Weetabix

Filed under: Movies, The Office, Weetabix | 32 Comments »

1. Gabby Sidibe was on one of four covers of Elle Magazine featuring young Hollywood stars. But she was the only one whose body was cropped out. Oh, and her skin was lightened, too.

2. Levi’s has come out with new “Curve ID” jeans, with different cuts similar to the Lane Bryant Right Fit concept. They go up to a size 24.

3. Making space for all kinds of bodies when we talk about body image, from Disabled Feminists. The post also addresses the idea of making space for those who don’t love their bodies at all. A thought-provoking read.

4. 500-pound teen dies in a fire when fire crews are unable to lift her. Heather, who sent in the article, pointed out how hateful the comments are in response to this tragedy, with references to her “eating herself to death.” Ugh.

5. Shapely Prose officially shuts its doors, and Kate Harding talks about her plans for the future. The end of an era!

Want to talk about any of this stuff? I know I do! Let’s take it to the comments!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Celebrities, Fashion, Fatism, Gabby Sidibe, Magazines, Meta, Race & Ethnicity | 21 Comments »

Just a quick post to remind everyone that Mike & Molly begins tonight, and the reviews are coming in.

Linda Holmes at NPR:

It has a lot of dumb jokes and broad (har har) portrayals, and everyone in the writers’ room should do 20 laps for the moment where two fat guys don’t know enough not to wedge themselves into a stairwell (a joke worthy of Saved By The Bell) and 25 more for a busted-furniture joke.

That stuff absolutely has to stop if the show is going to improve, both because it’s embarrassingly lazy and because it’s less observant about weight issues than some other nice moments in the opener. See, a guy like Mike is bound to be acutely aware of himself and is highly unlikely to cavalierly lean on tables. That’s not a “don’t make fun” killjoy thing; that’s a character thing. The cheap visuals are hard to resist, of course, but they must be resisted when they interfere with what is otherwise, surprisingly enough, a pretty human picture of these two people.

Dan Fienberg (co-signed by Alan Sepinwall) at Hitfix:

There are two different shows at war in the pilot for “Mike & Molly.”

One is a surprisingly sensitive, occasionally funny character study about two people who have had struggles in their lives, but now have maybe found a life partner. It’s not that you ever forget that the characters in this version of the story are overweight. No, the majority of the punchlines are still girth-based, but the gags rarely seem malicious and the tone of the comedy stems from welcome and familiar interaction with friends and loved ones. That is to say that there are definitely fat jokes, but they’re sheltered within a safe space.

In this show, Gardell and McCarthy are excellent…

In [the other] version of “Mike & Molly,” our female lead is introduced comically and frantically and somewhat humiliatingly working out to the blaring strains of “Brick House.” That version has one table destroyed and another upended by Mike’s inconvenient heft. That version has a ridiculous scene in which two Overeaters Anonymous members literally get stuck in a stairwell because they’re walking side-by-side.

I think that there’s less of this “Mike & Molly” than there is of the good version, but this is the version that the studio audience (sweetened laugh track) seems to most enjoy and this is the version that probably will stand out as the most memorable. This is the version about two fat people, who happen to be in love. This is the version that’s laughing at its main characters and not with them.

Feinberg also adds this:

If you have a comedy about any group of people who aren’t represented extensively on television, you probably don’t want to be laughing *at* them. Beyond just being smug and insufferable, you’re pigeon-holding the totality of a group’s representation down to being the subject for mockery. It’s here that one sadly needs to point out that in TV comedy, just about anybody who isn’t pretty, thin, white and middle-to-upper class is under represented. We’ve advanced a tiny bit from the days where the cast of “Friends” could wander around New York City for over a decade and meet roughly two people who didn’t look exactly like them, but not very far.

It’s great that the critics seem to be calling the show out on its fatism, and pointing towards some of the show’s possibilities for a positive representation of fat people. So will you be watching it? (I, sadly, will be working tonight and will miss both it and How I Met Your Mother.) If so, come back and let us know what you think!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Fat Positive, Fatism, Mike & Molly, Tidbit, TV | 19 Comments »

We already knew that, but here’s a quote from this interview (embedded below) with Perez Hilton where, at around 5:50, he says this:

If I were to do a clothing line, it would be for sizes 16 and higher. Because I really believe that those women are truly a neglected population, and when I visit department stores and I go to the shop that’s called “woman,” I am horrified! Horrified by the awful, degrading, disrespectful choices that women have. It is mind boggling. I mean, selecting these gigantic prints, and it’s… I mean, who wants to look like a couch?

Thanks to Kathy for the link (and transcription)!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Celebrities, Fashion, Fat Positive, Tidbit, Video | 23 Comments »

The title of this article, “Finding Fat Lit,” is promising. I was like, yeah! We need more fat characters! And then I read the article. Matt Stewart, who describes himself at his heaviest as “a hideous 239 pounds,” wants books about fat people—but only the ones who are trying to lose weight.

Millions of Americans go through this agony every day; 68% of us are overweight or obese. Yet we have few literary insights about obesity to help comfort us; zero provocative tales about the plight of the salad-muncher for us to identify with during bleak dieting times; hardly any entertaining stories about hitting the gym which might propel us to suck it up and go to pilates class after a long workday. We turn to Oprah, or The Biggest Loser, or Weight Watchers—but not fiction.

So yeah, he’s looking for “perceptive insights about struggling with obesity” in his literature. Not exactly what I’m looking for in my own literature about fat people, quite frankly. Some of the comments are noteworthy. Cynthia Hawkins says:

I can’t think of a work that might be about struggles with obesity … but even more interesting, I can’t think of a character who just happens to be overweight who isn’t also a baffoon, a source of comedy in some way, a sidekick, or a villain, etc.

James says:

It strikes me that ‘fat fiction’ would be quite a niche market with a limited appeal to people who haven’t struggled with weight. Our favourite characters tend to be ones we can relate to, or aspire to be like.

Really—if someone is fat, there’s no way we would ever “aspire to be like” them? Because any good qualities they may have are overshadowed by their fatness, I presume? Ridiculous.

And BuffPuff’s comment (worth reading the whole thing, but I can’t figure out how to link it; just scroll down) is just the bomb:

I would say that the reason there aren’t many books with fat protagonists in either literary or popular fiction is because we live in a highly fat phobic culture. If we didn’t, literary agents wouldn’t feel the need to pose questions about the commercial appeal of same to the readers of their blogs…

In all the books I’ve ever read featuring a fat protagonist, weight/self image has been an issue of some kind and self loathing writ large. Art, after all, imitates life and it’s near impossible, as a fat individual, to make one’s way in such an openly hostile environment and not have those issues come up. This is particularly true of women, who regularly bond over their perceived physical shortcomings, particularly when it comes to issues of food and weight and regardless of what size they are. Why do you think Bridget Jones’s Diary – a book about a neurotic, weight-fixated ninny, who isn’t actually fat – struck such a massive chord with the public?

This, however, is where art and life seem to part company. What there aren’t many of are novels in which a fat female protagonist is permitted to find love, happiness or success without losing weight by some means first, (broken heart leading to convenient loss of appetite/fortuitously timed sickness/Weight Watchers), or where they’re only permitted to find happiness with another fat person because, let’s face it, no one else would have them, (and, yes, this is sarcasm). I tend to avoid these like the plague. As a fat woman whose self-esteem improved in leaps and bounds the moment she decided to make peace with her body and quit the infernal diet-go-round for good, I have a major problem with that kind of tired, patronising pish. It’s not dissimilar to the state of gay fiction back in the pre-Stonewall dark ages – you could publish it, film it or put it on the stage … just as long as the characters you were portraying were shown to be wretched, embittered, lonely and seething with self-hatred, preferably enough to hang themselves in the final act.

That whole discussion weirdly made me think of Mike and Molly. Alan Sepinwall recently said that the show “is constantly at war over whether it wants to be laughing with or at its main characters. The ‘with’ parts I like, and Gardell and McCarthy are charming. The ‘at’ parts are nauseating.”

We want to see fat characters in TV and in books, and in film, but we don’t want them to be shown as objects of pity or (the dreaded Jemima J syndrome) people whose sad lives improve immeasurably once they are thin.

So, what are your favorite books with fat characters in them? And how do you want to see fat people portrayed in books?

Thanks to aych for the link!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Art, Biggest Loser, Books, Fat Positive, Fatism, Mike & Molly, Oprah, TV | 44 Comments »

A few days ago, I read the comments of this post on The F Word, discussing the idea that “every woman is beautiful.” This comment from Meerkat has really stuck with me since I read it.

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?

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Advocacy, Feminism, Personal, Question | 47 Comments »

Remember Sassy magazine? The little inside notes, the sardonic voice, the amazing pulse of an under-appreciated cultural uprising, it was all there in the glossy pages of Sassy. It’s almost like Karen Catchpole, Christina Kelly, Catherine Gysin and Mike Flaherty were bloggers a decade early. I don’t think the staff understood it at the time, but when the evil overlords churned 90% of the cool hip staff and started popping out a fluffy lame Seventeen-wannabe, it was the subcultural equivalent to the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

I’m guessing that a lot of us had Sassy moments that impacted your impressionable years. For me, when I read something that Mike Flaherty said about Roseann Barr being a “fat ugly cow”, something broke inside my brain. I wrote a seething letter to the editor, taking him and the magazine to task for preaching acceptance and then spewing that level of body hate. It was the first time I had ever dared to defend my body–my fatness–and it felt like the most dangerous thing in the world. Mike called me personally to apologize and then they published a version of the letter (although with a softened comment about still trying to lose weight) in their March 1990 issue.  I used the payment to fly to NYC and hang out in the Sassy offices with Christina, Mike and then spanking-new writer Kim France (now EIC of Lucky), pretty much making me the luckiest teenager in America for a short few hours.

One of the things I remember most about those two afternoons was how Christina told me to keep writing and keep questioning shit. Christina took her own advice. Check it out:

In Jane Brody’s column about BMI on Tuesday, she, or some hack doctor she quotes, says that it’s thoroughly possible for a 125 pound, 5 foot 5 inch woman to be fat. Shut the front door. Jane, this is frigging impossible. I am resisting the impulse to say you are going senile.

An ad for a plastic surgeon in The Montclair Times today asks, “Do you suffer from cellulite?” Suffering? Really? I’m almost speechless. There is a lot of suffering in this world, to be sure, very little of it from cellulite.

Tabitha Soren (former MTV News correspondent back when MTV was still relevant) said “Sassy has changed my life by making me hopeful that society’s stereotypes of the ideal physical female are unrealistic and terribly outdated. Sassy celebrates women who are real people that exist in the real world, not plastic surgery victims.”  It doesn’t happen often but it’s absolutely amazing when you see that your idols are still exactly who you thought they were, more than twenty years later.

Rock n roll, Christina Kelly. You’re still the coolest girl I’ve ever met.

Posted by Weetabix

Filed under: Feminism, Magazines, Old Timey, Weetabix | 11 Comments »

On the heels of the feminism debate in the comments, I have some news for the guys: your pants size may be lying to you. A supposed 36″ pant measures 41″ at Old Navy and 39.5″ at Dockers… and doesn’t seem to measure 36″ anywhere.

There’s a chart at that link, but before you click, be warned: there’s plenty of fatism to be had in that article. The writer assures us he’s “no cow,” conflates larger sizes with poorer health (and ice-cream eating) throughout, and talks about how he doesn’t “deserve” to feel good if his pants size is really 39″. Ugh.

Anyway, women complain about vanity sizing all the time because it makes it so difficult to reliably shop for clothes (particularly when brick-and-mortar stores refuse to carry your size, and you have to order online, cough cough). We say, “Why can’t the sizing be straightforward! Measured in inches! Like men’s sizes!” We do not say, “Why can’t men’s sizes be equally misleading and confusing, because that would be more fair!”

Fashion industry, you’re going in the wrong direction.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: BFDudes, Fashion, Fatism | 18 Comments »

It’s been three years since we asked Is Fat A Feminist Issue? And over the past few days, the subject has come up again. And how.

I’d seen some stirrings on Twitter, while I was out of town for the weekend, about a problematic post on Feministe, but I didn’t have a chance to go read it.

Then this morning, I read this terrific post from Meowser on the controversy, as well as the strawman version of Fat Acceptance that is being engaged by some feminist bloggers.

We say, “What causes people to weigh what they do is complex and multifactorial, and varies a lot from one person to another — and you can’t tell what people’s habits are by their pants size.” They hear, “Weight is purely inherited and has nothing whatsoever to do with behavior.” (Uh, no. Try the behavioral factors have been played to fucking death in the media, and we really, really don’t need to flog them yet again. Also, try dieting is a behavior too, and it makes most people who try it fatter, not thinner, especially if they take it up in childhood.)

Meowser also pointed to this post by Aunt B, which is well worth a read.

I just don’t see how any discussion that involves people policing women’s bodies and trying to dictate what women do with them can ever be feminist.

“Weight can signal a lack of activity or too many donuts, and that shouldn’t irk anyone,” Monica says. But that’s not a cultural critique. That’s an invitation to stick our noses into the business of women who are somehow “signaling” by being fat.

Again, I feel like this is a point that feminists would mull over–does a body, merely by being a body, signal anything? If my having big boobs tells you nothing about whether I’m a slut, why are you so sure it tells you anything about whether I’ve had too many donuts?

Here are the reasons fat is a feminist issue that I quoted back in 2007.

Why is it a feminist issue? Because only women are hounded for our weight 24/7 in every possible media venue. Because women are constantly being pressured to conform to fuckability standards – weight, hair, makeup, clothes, shoes, and sexual compliance are only some of the things that women are subjected to…

Men are not subject to these pressures to conform. Men are only considered fat if they are well over 50 lbs. overweight. Every inch of a man’s body does not have to be fat-free, sculpted, cellulite-free, etc. for him to be considered a real man. A woman with fat on her body (except breasts and hips) is hardly a woman at all.

Yes, fat acceptance also includes men, and men also deal with fatism and self-esteem issues and pressure to have more ideal bodies. And body acceptance extends to everyone: fat, thin, in between, because we are all faced with a world full of unrealistic standards. So fat is not a feminist issue to the exclusion of anyone who is not a fat woman.

But should feminists consider fat a feminist issue? Do they have a responsibility to consider that fat shaming affects women disproportionately, or that a woman owning her body—the same body autonomy that feminists argue so vehemently for when it comes to sexuality— extends to her owning of its fat percentage? Absolutely.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Advocacy, Fatism, Feminism, Health | 22 Comments »

This next question actually was left as a comment, but I thought it would be worth turning it into an entry.

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!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Ask BFD, Fashion, Question | 28 Comments »

So I was over at a friend’s house watching Project Runway last night, and I immediately knew I’d have to come home and write a quick post about it. So, they did their “real woman” challenge again where, instead of models, they have regular women to design for. In this case, it was women wearing hideous bridesmaids dresses, which the contestants had to “transform” into fashion.

I always cringe a little when the designers get to choose their models for these types of challenges, because often it’s the largest woman left standing. And indeed, the first designer to pick chose a woman mostly because she was skinny, and said something to that effect. And yes, the largest woman was the last one picked. (And I think the second largest was the second-to-last one picked. Sigh.)

Then this poor girl (who was super cute) ended up in a horrible, unflattering, hideous dress, with a horrid hairdo, which made me embarrassed for all fat girls everywhere. (You can’t see the full horror of the dress in this shot because off the little shrug. It actually doesn’t look so bad here. But if you saw the episode, you know: it was tragic.) The public got to vote on the designs, and this dress got one sole pity vote, from another plus-sized woman. That’s right, fat sisterhood, represent! A very interesting moment. Anyway, the whole thing was insane.

Then I got home and found an email waiting for me in my inbox from a BFD tipster who wishes to remain anonymous. Here’s what she had to say about the episode:

We all know the fashion industry is fat-phobic, but “Project Runway” was particularly vile tonight. They had a full-figured gal on one of the challenges as a model (she was like, maybe a size 16!) and the designers all behaved as though she was impossible to design for. The guy who created a dress for her…vacillated between total contempt, self-pity and then faux enthusiasm for having to make a dress for a normal-sized woman. The whole thing was vomitrocious.

Hee. “Vomitrocious.” And that’s not even getting into how needlessly nasty people are being to the very sweet Michael C. So did any of you guys see the episode? What did you think?

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Fashion, Project Runway, TV | 54 Comments »

Michelle Fonville speaking out about her treatment at the nail salon reminds me of another form of speaking out: writing a letter of complaint.

Recently(ish), BFD reader cb wrote in to share part of a survey she’d filled out after shopping at the Gap’s online store, and the response she received. She rated her online experience 5 out of 10 and when they asked why, here’s what she said:

I am a plus-sized shopper, and wear a size 20 or XXL. While I love many of Gap’s products, I am unhappy that I can’t go into a store and try things on in my size. This is a sizeist attitude, and one that I don’t appreciate. It means I have to pay (shipping) to try something on, whereas people wearing smaller sizes can (barring an item being sold out) walk in and try things on.

It would be greatly appreciated if you would bring the plus sizes back into the stores. You have a great line of products through both Gap and Old Navy (Banana Republic does not offer plus sizes), and I would like to feel that my business is important enough to warrant being welcome inside your stores. You are turning away women who are willing to hand you their money by not catering to your plus sized market. My
online shopping experience is as good as can be expected, but I don’t like paying to try on clothes.

The Gap responded:

Thank you for your feedback regarding our women’s plus line not being
carried in our stores. As a company, we are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating our business, and customer feedback like yours is a vital part of the process. We hope you know that it is never our intention to frustrate customers with what we are able to offer in our stores. We can assure you that your feedback will be shared with the appropriate company personnel.

Cb was surprised that she got a response, and added “I really feel like we in the plus-sized community have an opportunity here to tell these companies that we want the opportunity to shop for items IN-STORE.”

I was reminded of her email in the postcard comments thread, when The Binge Diary suggested writing a letter of complaint to the company that produced the postcard—a good idea that simply hadn’t occurred to me.

I confess I don’t really write any letters of complaint at all, although I have really been tempted to write a letter to the Harry Potter theme park, since I really really really want to spend a lot of money to travel to Florida and ride their ride, but I probably can’t. It made me wonder: Do you write complaint letters yourself? Do you think they make a difference? Have you ever gotten results?

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Advocacy, Fashion, Old Navy | 29 Comments »

It’s actually not often that I get emails from more than one tipster on the same subject, but Kari, Leigh, and Amy all sent me links to this story! A woman in Georgia was told she would have to pay $5 extra for her manicure because she was fat.

Michele Fonville claims she was charged five extra dollars for her manicure due to her weight. Kim Tran, owner of the Natural Nails Salon in DeKalb County, Georgia, said the reason she was being charged was apparently fat patrons were causing damage to salon chairs (as opposed to possible normal wear and tear). When Ms. Fonville told the owner she couldn’t charge her extra because it was weight discrimination, Tran allegedly replied it wasn’t fair to charge $24 for a manicure when it costs $2500 to fix broken furniture. She refunded the extra charge and told Fonville not to come back because she couldn’t serve her anymore…

Us fat people take so much crap in our society, the last thing we should have to worry about is being shamed at a nail salon. And while Kim Tran probably can charge fat people more for manicures because there is no national weight discrimination law on the books, it’s still disheartening she would think to only blame large people for breaking her furniture and making them pay for the cost towards items she as a business owner is required to supply.

Leigh lives in the same town, and sent us this link to a local news source, which quotes both Fonville and Tran:

I said, ‘I’ve been overcharged. She may have made an error,’” said Fonville. “She broke it down, then told me she charged me $5 more because I was overweight. I was humiliated. I almost cried. Tears were forming in my eyes….”

“I didn’t want to argue with her about $5. I wanted to make her pleased with her service,” Tran said. “I whispered … I said, ‘I’m sorry, next time I cannot take you.”

When Kari wrote in, she pointed out that Michelle Fonville’s name is in the headlines of some of these articles, which might suggest a subtle note of public “fat shaming.” And then I realized that despite being humiliated and hurt by what had happened, Michelle Fonville decided to speak out about it—go to the media and tell her story publicly and on camera. A lot of people might have been too embarrassed to do that, and have their name in those headlines. But despite her humiliation, Michelle didn’t waver from her belief that the $5 surcharge was discrimination, and that it was wrong, and that people should hear about it.

How many stories like this must happen every day? If Michelle Fonville’s bravery in going public is a rarity, how many other incidents must happen that we never find out about? How many people—who may blame themselves for their weight, who may buy into the culture of body shaming—are afraid to be laughed at, instead of supported, if they insist they’ve been treated wrongly? I wonder.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Advocacy, Cold Hard Cash, Fatism | 25 Comments »

The days are growing shorter and the air smells like freshly-sharpened pencils. After Labor Day, bare legs are verboten if you adhere to Miss Manners, so what’s a girl to do? Tights, baby. Tights.

Finding a decent pair of plus size tights is a bit of a challenge. Sometimes tight purveyors make gigantically long tights with a larger waistband, as though their customers are plus size giraffes. I’m 5’9″ and even I shake my head at these ridiculous things. Also, in theory, tights should be more hearty than your average silken hosiery, and yet somemanufacturers send out tights which are dear and apparently made of knit gossamer and spider webs. Therefore, even though I LOVE all of those choices, I tend to shy away from places like Hips And Curves, Tights Online and We Love Colors. Mopie is delicate enough to pull that off, but I cannot. More specifically, my ass, thighs and the rubbing action of said thighs cannot.

Mopie and I met up with BFDivas Sony, Elise and Marie Denee for an Igigi free-for-all and Elise was very taken with my hot pink tights. “Promise me you’ll do a tights post. PROMISE!” she insisted. And here I thought it was just me. Here’s the advice I gave her: shop where  maiden aunts and librarians shop. No kidding! The venues may not have the sexy colors but their tights wear like iron and go through dozens of washings with nary a pilled inner thigh.

Here are my top picks for sturdy, well-fitting tights:

• Catherine’s. Most fatshionistas flutter their eyelids at the thought of walking into this store, with its applique’d polyester dresses and matronly sportswear, but their hosiery is amazingly resistant to runs. The colors are pretty boring however, black tights are the workhorses of a fall wardrobe and I get all of mine from Catherine’s. (Sizes up to 7x)
• Woman Within/Roamans/One Stop Plus/Jessica London: If you buy from them, you’ll forever get a million paper catalogs in the mail, but oh the colors! Orange! Teal! Cranberry! Purple! You automatically get an heir and a spare with their 2 pack deal, so it’s the best bang for your tight dollar, even if they don’t wear quite as long as the boring options from Catherine’s. They have cool sparkly Lurex too. (Sizes up to 8x)
• Avenue: Inconsistent sizing (sometimes I get the weirdly long or super small pair) and word on Fatshionista is that they changed the quality of their standard tights but I still can’t resist things like the double diamond pointelle. The hot pink pair of tights that prompted this post came from Avenue. (Sizing up to EE, which fits 320-375 lbs)
• Torrid: Pretty one note for selection (and that note tends to be goth). Even though I’ve given up on their plain black tights, Torrid is still my automatic go to for statement hosiery like fishnets. Huge caveat: they have the crappiest waistbands imaginable, and the runs/rips always start there, but I usually just go MacGyver and either cut off the waistband entirely and hold them up by wearing a pair of Spanx over them or cut the legs off and use a garter belt. Torrid gets extra credit for using models of size in their photos. (Sizing up to 3x/4x, which means practically nothing)

What did I miss? Where are the amazing tights to be found? Hit us up in the comments for your juicy secrets!

Full disclosure: Neither BFD nor I received any compensation to endorse these products!

Posted by Weetabix

Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Weetabix | 26 Comments »

Oh, celebrities. Or “celebrities,” if you prefer, since we’re talking about two of the Real Housewives, a phenomenon which I can’t even go into, since I don’t understand it at all. Anyway, two of these “housewives” shared their diets with two different tabloids last week. While posing for pictures in bikinis. Ready?

Michaele Salahi poses in a bikini for [InTouch] and then says she is not an anorexic and that she eats plenty and that if people would get out and move they would look just like her. Eating plenty huh? Want to know what she eats everyday? In the morning she has a bowl of cereal and at night she has a salad with some grilled chicken in it. No lunch or anything else the entire day. Umm, how does she even have the energy to move around…

Not to be outdone, Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel says the way she lost 33 pounds after pregnancy was to “Taste everything, eat nothing.” Umm, that sounds like one of the favorite tricks of anorexia. .. What [the tabloids] have done is put two incredibly skinny women in bikinis in their magazine and said they basically don’t eat. That is the only way you will look like them and the tabloids seem to be celebrating it. That is wrong, wrong wrong. If you are naturally skinny, then great. You are just as sexy as the curvy person or the overweight person. What I don’t like is they are saying the only way to be sexy is to be thin and to not eat. That is wrong.

I think we’re all pretty familiar with the hypocrisy of the tabloids by now. But still, as long as they keep printing this, it’s good to keep saying it: these messages are damaging and dangerous. And the Real Housewives may be, right at this very moment, the number one thing that’s holding back contemporary feminism. Well, them and Heidi Montag.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Gossip, Magazines, TV | 22 Comments »

We have another great Ask BFD question, this time from Barnardgirl! She’s wondering about the cognitive dissonance of being an advocate and still not accepting yourself fully. Bolding mine:

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?

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Advocacy, Ask BFD, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Magazines, Question | 6 Comments »

Oh, the postcards. The postcards with awful puns and “jokes” on them that feature very large models and often show them in the process of eating something. We’ve all seen them, right? I saw this one last month, while I was on vacation in Ohio, and I was like, “oh god, these. I remember these.”

When I was a kid, they didn’t annoy me (like they do now) they just made me uncomfortable. And why? Because they sent me the message that fat people are meant to be laughed at. Or maybe that fat people shouldn’t put on bathing suits. And my mom was not a skinny woman, and she wore a bathing suit. It made me feel protective and sad. Were people laughing at her? Was she funny, the way the postcards were funny?

I also used to wonder about the models who pose for these pictures. And I guess I still wonder about them, the same way I wonder about actors who are cast in parts where they don’t have a name, are just listed as “Fat Girl #3” or whatever.

So, these postcards. Harmless kitsch or fatism in the wild? And is it just my imagination or are we, at least, seeing fewer of them?

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Fatism, Kids, Personal, Postcard | 16 Comments »

Firstly, I hope you’ve had a chance to notice all the small improvements around here. We now have buttons on each entry to let you Twitter and Facebook them, you can reply to individual comments, you can have follow-up comments emailed to you (which is really handy if someone joins a conversation late), and you can see related posts. Plus, DID YOU SEE THE PRETTY CATEGORY CLOUD IN THE SIDEBAR? IT IS SO PRETTY.

Thanks to Make My Blog Pretty for being awesome and doing a great job with all these little details. And please play around with these new features and let me know if anything looks off or weird or whatnot. There is now an “email us” link in the sidebar, or Twitter me up.

Secondly, this really has nothing to do with anything, but I just had to share this video of Inefficient Drinking Cat.

For me, the winning shot is at 1:43. Although 2:02 is pretty awesome too.

Thanks for the link, aych!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Feel Good Friday, Humor, Meta, Video | 8 Comments »

1. Photographic proof that fat people existed in the past, from Manolo for the Big Girl. Some really cool pictures.

2. Lesley at Fatshionista is doing Huge recaps, and tackles the latest episode here. Also, the cast signs a Body Peace Treaty, but… there are some problems, as The
Rotund explains:

“Oh, hi, y’all, love your bodies but isn’t this traditionally attractive boy just the hottest? You may be smart and funny and good looking but you won’t measure up to the mainstream heartthrobby good looks of the thin dude.”

Yeah, I’m paraphrasing. BUT COME ON.

3. The Glamazons are auditioning for new talent.

Those 4 plus size beauties are looking to cast another girl to add to the group! Are you a gorgeous, tall, plus size girl who can sing and dance? Please send pics and resumes to glamazongirls@gmail.com for audition appointment.

4. Let’s teach preschoolers to count calories! Family Feeding Dynamics spots a problematic sign at the local Farmer’s Market.

Circle the healthiest choice (fewest calories)!
Ring the cowbell!

1/2 cup diced fruit salad (60 calories)
1/2 cup diced fruit salad with 2 Tbspn orange juice (88 calories)
1/2 cup diced fruit salad with 2 Tbspns light yogurt (96 calories)

I wonder why adding yogurt is not “healthy” or the assertion that the definition of “healthy” is low calorie. Low-calorie and low-fat diets fail nutritionally for small children (and fail for adults too.) I won’t elaborate on why this is garbage “nutrition” info which is more harmful than helpful.

5. And finally, happy ten-year blogoversary to the granddaddy of all FA blogs, Big Fat Blog!

I know we haven’t solved all of the world’s fat problems (yet), but just think for a second where fat acceptance and body equality were ten years ago. Or maybe it would be easier to think of where *you* were on the body love continuum ten years ago.

Happy Thursday!

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Advocacy, Food, Huge, Kids, Music, Old Timey, TV | 6 Comments »