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 […]

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 […]

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

The folks at Urban Outfitters (those owl-pushers) are now selling a shirt with the words “Eat Less” scrawled across the front—modeled, of course, by a very thin model. And it is pissing people off. People like Stephanie Hayes: It’s just mean, scary and damaging to all the poor innocent girls who ALREADY feel like Shamu […]

Filed under: Advertising, Eating Disorders, Fashion, Fatism, Humor | 43 Comments »

1.    I thought this was really fascinating: A professional model talks very personally about her body image issues and the modeling industry, in a guest post on the always awesome Already Pretty. I started modeling in 1998, at the age of 19, at 5’11” (180 cm) and 120 pounds (55 kg). I grew up hating […]

Filed under: Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Gossip, Kevin Smith, Kirstie Alley, Links, Media, Movies, TV | 14 Comments »

1. The new Oprah biography contains a shocking allegation about pecan pie (and, perhaps, an opportunity to become educated about food addiction). From Michelle Coppola: Oprah once ordered two pecan pies from room service and *shudder* ATE THEM BOTH!! And what, Kitty Kelley? The earth tilted on its axis from Oprah’s subsequent weight gain? As […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Food, Kids, Links, Magazines, Meta, Oprah, Race & Ethnicity | 17 Comments »

In an interview with the Examiner, Amanda Seyfried admits she’s “not naturally thin,” and goes to extremes to make sure she gets acting work. “I’m on a raw-food diet,” says Seyfried. “It’s intense, and sort of awful. Yesterday for lunch? Spinach and some seeds… If I didn’t run and work out, there’s no way I […]

Filed under: Celebrities, Diet Talk, Eating Disorders, Exercise, Movies, Tidbit | 20 Comments »

This article from the L.A. Times runs down some recent examples of fatism, such as the save-the-whales PETA ad, the mandatory “fat class” graduation requirement, and the proposed bill outlawing restaurant dining by obese people in Mississippi. The pattern, the Times posits, is that slim people are “fed up” with the obese. Some choice quotes, […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Art, Eating Disorders, Fatism, Health, Kids, Movies, Personal | 48 Comments »

Catching up on my blog reading, I ran across the discussion on binge eating over at The F Word. First, Rachel quotes this article, where Matthew Tiemeyer says: Here’s something I hadn’t thought about before. The definition of binge-eating disorder (BED) says that binges involve eating more food than most people would expect you to […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Food, Race & Ethnicity | 18 Comments »

Speaking of feeling confident in our bodies, have you guys heard about National Fat Talk Free Week? We’re actually two days into it, now–it started on October 19, and appears to end on October 23rd, after which, presumably, we can all go back to shit-talking our asses and blaming all our flaws and unhappinesses on […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Fat Positive, Fatism, Health, International, Magazines, Media, Politics | 5 Comments »

Here, from Sarah in the previous post, is a comment worth commenting on. (She’s talking about a scene in Drop Dead Diva that depicts our fat leading character binging on donuts and cream cheese): I’m not bothered by the overeating though. I am 100% on the FA bandwagon, and I know fat can be caused […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Drop Dead Diva, Eating Disorders, Fatism, Personal, Question, TV | 62 Comments »

Anyone who knows me knows what this post really is. It’s a flimsy excuse to mention Adam Lambert, my favorite American Idol contestant ever; sorry Clay, Kelly, Daughtry, whomever. (Adam Lambert, I make such a good best-girlfriend-of-a-gay-dude* ever; seriously, call me. I have references.) *Avoiding the potentially inflammatory terminology here! Anyway I LOVE HIM, is […]

Filed under: Adam Lambert, American Idol, Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Gossip, Personal, Sex & Romance, TV | 17 Comments »

BFDiva Meredith alerted me to the below “Dear Prudence” video advice column from Slate. In her e-mail, she sums up her outrage nicely: The advice requester explains that he has a fat coworker who eats all the communal chocolate at a meeting, and he wants to say something to the fat man about how his […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Fatism, Guest Post, Video | 28 Comments »

Susan Orbach, the feminist psychologist who wrote Fat is a Feminist Issue, is coming out with a new book called Bodies. In it, she’s examining how our relationship with our bodies has reached a crisis point, not just in terms of the fear and phobia of fat and the size-zero culture, but how the endless […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Books, Eating Disorders, Feminism, International, Media, Tidbit | 8 Comments »

Thought it couldn’t get any crazier than the baby food diet or the swallow a tapeworm diet? While surfing around gossip blogs today, I ran across a reference to celebrities going on an “IV diet.” As in intravenous. Diet. I found the blurb here: One of Hollywood’s dirty little secrets is the ‘IV diet’, in […]

Filed under: Celebrities, Cold Hard Cash, Eating Disorders, Gossip, Health, International, Science, Tidbit, Weight Loss | 16 Comments »

It’s Fashion Week, which means we get things like this amazing collection by Christian Siriano and another look at the size zero model phenomenon. Apparently, they’re back in style this season. (So much for Whitney’s victory on America’s Next Top Model.) Spurred on by a spike in reality TV shows promoting extreme dieting, women are […]

Filed under: Advertising, Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Fashion, Kids, Project Runway, TV | 19 Comments »

Whenever I’m asked who this blog is for, I inevitably say it’s for my teenage self—and for teenagers who are like her. So it might not be too surprising that my hot button issue is the way the media talks to teenage girls. For example, in magazines like Teen Vogue that may be subtly promoting […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Books, Celebrities, Eating Disorders, Fashion, Feminism, Kids, Magazines, Media | 18 Comments »

Oh this is a fucking wonderful idea: an MTV reality show called Model Maker that asks women to lose up to eighty pounds in twelve weeks. Doing the math, that’s approximately seven pounds per week. The goal is, of course, to be “thin” and “beautiful” enough to be a model. (One of the prizes is […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Feminism, Health, Media, Personal, TV, Weight Loss | 15 Comments »

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 from […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Feminism, Kids, Media | 2 Comments »

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

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

Like the Movies recently liked to the Body Image Project, describing it as a blog “where people anonymously write in about their perceptions of and struggles with body image.” Age 17 In middle school I remember being happy. No one talked about their weight or their body. I am now in high school and the […]

Filed under: Advocacy, Eating Disorders, Feel Good Friday, Tidbit | 5 Comments »

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

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

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

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

As promised, I wanted to talk about the appearance of Morgan (aka Fatgrrl) on the Mike & Juliet show. Here are the videos (are you guys getting tired of Mike and Juliet yet? To think, two weeks ago I had no idea who they were). There are also blow-by-blows at Morgan’s site and at Rachel’s […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Meta, TV, Video | 13 Comments »

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 […]

Filed under: Eating Disorders, Fatism, Food, Kids | 27 Comments »

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

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