Blah Blah Flowers

PETA calls all overweight people 'whales'. Seriously, this makes me want to go out and hunt foxes. To break their legs and watch them die slow, agonising deaths. While wringing the necks of baby chickens. Before smearing myself all over with duck liver pate. I mean, why don't PETA just put out a press statement saying 'Dear World, we all think you're arseholes' and then slit their throats so their astral forms can go join the vegetarian spaceship? I can only assume that PETA are actually a huge prank being played on the world by Chris Morris. Oh sure, he says he's making a movie, but who really knows what he's up to?

Labels: fatism, PETA, stupidity

Christina Patterson, presumably desperate to fill out her column for a week, launches a vile and unprovoked attack on NHS nurses for their all being huge overweight trolls in the Indy.

I'm sitting reading a book when a gargantuan creature comes lumbering over, and marches me to what might or might not be a scaffold. After a few adjustments... the creature nods.

The creature is, of course, a nurse and yes, my BMI is OK. Hers, however, is not. But we are not here to measure her BMI...

Other normal-sized friends have been told by giant doctors that they are fat... Because it is surreal, I'm afraid, to be lectured on your weight by someone whose mass of accumulated adipose tissue is considerably greater than yours.

No one expects nurses to look like supermodels, or lap dancers, or air hostesses, or even like anything that might ever have inspired an erotic fantasy... but you don't expect them all to look like Hattie Jacques either. And at least Hattie Jacques knew how to smile. You might, however, reasonably expect the custodians of the nation's health not to look as though they were about to consume the GDP of Iceland in medication for diabetes, and you might expect the custodians of the nation's health to at least have glanced at some of the leaflets on obesity they so lugubriously hand out.

Between this, their hysterical about-face on the legalisation of Cannabis and their continued employment of Deborah 'immigrant homosexuals follow me around to have gay sex in front of my children' Orr it does seem this once great paper is now slowly trying to position itself as the broadsheet Daily Mail.

Labels: fat, fatism, journalists, NHS, The Independent

Fat Monologue.[via Shapely Prose]

Labels: fat, fatism

Mississippi is considering banning restaurants from serving fat people.

I called lead author, Rep[resentative W.T. Mayhall Junior], and asked if this was serious legislation or tongue-in-cheek to make a point. He kindly took a moment to answer my question while the legislature was in session. He said that while, regrettably, he doesn’t believe his bill will pass, this is serious.

[via Shapely Prose]

Labels: fat, fatism, health, United States

Brain-damaged pugilistic failure Ricky Hatton claims losing some piddling boxing fight has caused a spontaneous sex-change.

The 29-year-old – knocked out by Floyd Mayweather earlier this month – said: "I feel like a woman at the minute. I can’t stop crying. All that is missing is a pair of t*ts. I feel like my world has come to an end. It is going to take a while for me to get my head round it. Ultimately the biggest fight of my life was the biggest disappointment of my life."

Calm down dear, it's only a pointless and barbaric sport! Just marry a footballer and go on 'Celebrity Big Brother' to be racist at someone, that'll make you feel better.

Several papers are showing 'concern' over Chastity Bono's weight. They express this by printing pictures as she makes the cardinal mistake of appearing in public being larger than Posh Spice.

Meanwhile, no-one mentions the police tasering a black man in the head.

Labels: fatism, newspapers, police, sport

Tad Safran: I'm never getting laid in the UK again.

With lots of 'I'm sorry... sorry you suck!' language.

What started out as a light-hearted, anecdotal account of my impressions of dating women on both sides of the Atlantic has exploded into a national furore.

Which is a slight exaggeration. Northern Rock collapsing was a national furore. The Government losing people's personal data was a national furore. You just pissed off a bunch of people with access to the Internets.

I was utterly unprepared for the avalanche [of responses], but I stick to my guns: when British women reach the age where looking good is no longer effortless, they seem unwilling or unable to rise to the challenge. And judging by the vitriol of the response, I realise I’ve not only touched a nerve, I’ve reached into the underbelly of a deep, dark insecurity. Nobody gets that defensive about something they don’t care about...

...And God forbid any woman should be motivated by trying to attract a man. Apparently British women have overcome a billion years of biology.

Tad, meet Nirpal. Congratulations on deciding that a)lesbians don't exist (although I suppose we should be thankful you restrained your charming wit from making a 'joke' about them being the fat ladies), b) generalising from your own experience that men only want size 0 girls.

And I can’t help feeling I’ve let British women off lightly. It’s not just the Americans you don’t compare to: British women don’t have the curves of the Italians, the simmering sexuality of the Spanish, the sophistication of the French or the openness of the Scandinavians.

So what do British women have? Top spot in the European obesity table. Top spot in the European teen pregnancy table. And the only spots (besides Denmark) in the chart showing rising alcohol consumption among women in western Europe.

Well done, Britain. If what women are striving for is the ability to get hammered and fall over in the street, Britain is a feminist paradise from coast to coast.

And a last minute invoking of the 'feminist=ugly' myth. That should generate enough heat to keep several old folks homes warm for the winter.

Labels: beauty, fatism, journalists, misogyny, Tad Safran, women

Obesity might not be as bad for our health as assumed.

Only this month a study, led by Katherine Flegal of the USA Centre for Disease Control, reported that those who are overweight had no higher risk dying of cancer or heart disease and overall lived longer than those of "normal" weight. You might be surprised at her finding but she was not. "There is actually a large amount of evidence that suggests that the overweight live the longest," she says... a recent study by Cancer Research UK reported that 6,000 women a year get cancer because of obesity. But look closer at the detail of the report and you find an unreported story. This research also found the overweight are no more likely to die of cancer than the slim. "Overall there is no evidence of a strong increase in risk in being overweight, but there is evidence of a significant increase for people who are obese," says Doctor Gillian Reeves, who led the study.

I'd also draw your attention to this post by Lord Stephen of Fryingtonshire. Patrick and Kevin, as my only United Statesian readers, is Stephen right when he describes the difference between British and American debate styles, at least the USian side of it? It would certainly explain half of the arguments I've had with Americans in the past. The other half were due to being drunk.

Labels: fat, fatism, health, Stephen Fry, United Kingdom, United States

Parts One to Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen.

Things have slipped past me a bit, I was on holiday when the last NDW was due and haven't had much of a chance to catch up until now. So this is what your favourite pair of journos did in August and I'll try to bring things up to date later in the week. How's that for service?


I'd rather be a 'coconut' than cling to race
Evening Standard (London); Aug 1, 2007;

I'M BORED with multiculturalism. Your colour, the food you eat and the God you worship are considered to be your defining characteristics. But I think that someone's choice of pizza topping says more about them than their choice of religion. And for stating this, I'll be called a "coconut" brown on the outside and white on the inside by those who cling to their race for their identity rather than making any effort to develop a genuine personality.

A new BBC survey shows that a third of young Asians in Britain think you have to be a coconut and "act white" if you want to get ahead in this country. A lot of black people hold the same assumption, using terms like "selling out" and "Uncle Tom". It's an attitude based on ignorance and resentment, expressed in empty playground taunts. Rather than acknowledge that someone's achievements have required talent and hard work, they dismiss their success as a reward for sucking up to Whitey.

Except no one really knows what "acting white" means. Morris dancing, binge drinking and dancing like a clown to Abba at office parties? And how would "acting white" get you anywhere in any case? There are plenty of white-skinned deadbeats in this country whose colour hasn't given them any advantage over anyone.

In fact the coconut complex is the ethnic equivalent of the old colonial fear of "going native". I've known many people who've made an ostentatious display of their ethnicity wearing loud ethnic fabrics or changing their English names to African ones to build a persona that is no more than skin deep. It's the same kind of neurosis that compels chavs who've relocated to the Costa Del Sol to create a Chigwell-on-the-Med, replete with trashy boozers and fish- and-chip shops.

Given that your colour is a biological fact that you have no choice over, being proud of it is as stupid as being proud of having lungs or eyebrows. Yet many Asians and blacks still think that this is what defines them. They look down at those who share their pigmentation but don't live by their clichs. And they're encouraged to do so by cheesy white nerds who think that being ethnic equals being cool.

I've been called a coconut many times for dating white girls, for liking indie bands, even for eating cous cous. For daring to live a life that's a bit more interesting and varied than the norm, I've been accused of selling out and trying to be a white man.

Sure, wearing a burka or speaking raggamuffin street patois won't fast track you up the career ladder; but they don't prove how strong your identity is, either. They only reveal how little exposure you've had to others and show the world that you are a someone who really ought to get out more..

Try as I might I can't see anything in this article that's a dig at Ms Jones. Is this the end of an era? A week later and Nirpal is still choosing to attack other people...

Face it, fatty - you're just greedy and idle
Evening Standard (London); Aug 8, 2007;

WHY is it that the NHS is reportedly spending 1 million a week on fat-fighting pills for the overweight? Increasingly, doctors are prescribing expensive quickfix treatments that do nothing to change people's diets and lifestyles. But the truth, as Dr Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association, admitted last week, is that people are fat simply because they're greedy and lazy.

I was a fat kid who lost weight in my teens; in my twenties I put a lot of it back on. I shifted it again by the only method guaranteed to work: eating less and working out.

My exercise routines were so hard they often left me wanting to vomit. It was a hellish experience, but it worked.

Ever since I have had no sympathy for fat people whatsoever.

Are there any parts of society that Nirpal does have sympathy for? Parts that aren't middle-aged British Asian authors with the initials NSD?

I was fat for exactly the same reasons that every fat person is: because I ate like a pig and slobbed out on the couch when I should've been going for a jog.

Almost a fifth of Britons are obese. That figure is set to triple over the next 20 years, making Britain the indisputable Fat Man of Europe. And if we want to avoid that fate, the message should be clear: we must stop mollycoddling the overweight and pandering to their sensitivities and start telling them painful home truths instead.

If only fat people were told, on a daily basis, from a young age, they were fat. Why, that would surely put them straight!

Unlike racism and sexism, discrimination against fat people is entirely justifiable. It is one form of prejudice that is beneficial for those discriminated against and society as a whole.

Looking up 'prejudice' on Dictionary.com, I see the first definition is 'an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason', which pretty much fits Nirpal to a tee. I also like his clear separation of 'good prejudice' such as that against groups he's not a part of, and 'bad prejudice', such as that against groups he is, such as ethnic ones. Alright, so he puts sexism in there too, so it's nice to know that he's only concerned about himself 90% of the time rather than the full 100%.

If fat people faced obstacles in employment and other areas, they'd think twice before stuffing their faces. We would then have a trimmer, sexier society, and save billions currently wasted on stapling the stomachs and treating the heart complaints of the overweight.

I wonder how much money is spent on treating those who started smoking trying to stay skinny? There's also the assumption in there that only skinny is sexy which, of course, if Nirpal pulled his head out of his skinny arse for a second he'd see wasn't reflected in society. Still, he's spent years living with Liz Jones, it's not surprising he's picked up the fashion industries fucked up attitudes towards body size.

Fat people should be ashamed of themselves but our society stupidly celebrates their condition.

When? Where?

Mika has a top 10 hit with his song Big Girl (You Are Beautiful), and Dove's ad campaigns have famously featured busty, broadhipped models, proclaiming they represent "real women". Most of those women are not "real", they are merely fat albeit much prettier than most fat women.

Nirpal doesn't believe fat women aren't real. I'm not sure what basis he's using for this claim but it would be nice if one of the biggest champions of his writing, plus-sized Julie Burchill, was just a figment of someone's imagination. I also presume that Nirpal did not study history, that most societies except recent ones did not hold up the Kate Moss physique as the final word on beauty.

And don't start me on those Dove adverts, I suppose it's another sign of how fucked up the fashion industry is that those women are considered freakishly different, so as to be held up by Dove as being examples of 'real beauty', one of the more headachey advertising campaigns of the modern age. Where are the disabled women? The women with cleft palettes? Why haven't Dove told any Down's Syndrome girls they are beautiful? Argh! One fight at a time, let's focus on the bigot in the room for now.

Those ads help to normalise obesity in the public consciousness, and make it acceptable.

God forbid that we should try and live and love as one.

Despite all the junk excuses given for why people are fat their genes, or that they comfort eat because their mums never hugged them enough

Or when scientists explain natural biological processes...

the fact remains that they can all lose weight if they grit their teeth and take charge of their lives. Telling the same old lies about fat being a disease or the fault of the fast-food industry will only create a catastrophically overweight society. Fat people have to accept that they are the only ones to blame for the state they're in and just stop passing the buck.

The paper received a letter a few days later.

Disabled - and now demoralised
Evening Standard (London); Aug 10, 2007;

I WAS aghast to read Nirpal Dhaliwal's column (Face it fatty you're just greedy and idle, 8 August).

I was born with a dislocated hip.

For a long time I could lead an active life, but my hip suffered progressive deterioration and for about five years, until I had it replaced, I could barely walk 100 yards because the pain was unbearable. As a result I gained a significant amount of weight, despite eating healthily.

I am now rebuilding an exercise regime, including swimming half a mile four times a week, but would still fall well outside Dhaliwal's trim ideal. He may be correct in thinking some fat people could do more to help themselves, but could he consider the demoralising effect his comments might have on those larger members of the population physically unable to do the hard workouts he recommends?

How bloody dare you 'name and address supplied'? How dare you suggest that Nirpal thinks about anything he writes? Are you aware of the neurological trauma and overheating of the head that occurs if Nirpal tries to engage even one of his neurons? Have you seen the film 'Scanners'? Are you really willing to take responsibility for the consequences?

The following week Nirpal writes about how he was lazy at school until he came round to doing his exams he says:

Exams are the fairest way of measuring ability. The affluent might be able to pay for private tuition for their children but kids with a desire to do well if properly encouraged can make up for it with individual hard work. I went to a nuthouse of a state school but I breezed through my GCSEs because I did a ton of revision on my own.

There was no way I would have done so well if it all been coursework. My school was so anarchic that it was impossible to behave in class; the mob mentality meant that any pupil who was obviously bookish was despised. It was easier to join in the mayhem and revise crazily in the run-up to exams than to perform consistently throughout the year.

To be fair to him he was, as he admitted the previous week, a lazy fat kid.

Exams are an excellent preparation for adult life, which is full of stress and expectations to deliver results while under pressure.

Nirpal Dhaliwal is an author who took some six years to write a novel, supported in that time by his then-wife. It's important to keep these facts close to hand when reading his columns.

Come August the 22nd and Nirpal is telling us how he tried cocaine once and didn't like it, and why Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse are arseholes (nice try Nirps, but you can't win me over that easily).

I have one friend with a drug problem and never show him any sympathy. I'm honest and tell him how tedious he is, unlike his fawning girlfriends whose mollycoddling has helped keep him an addict. He respects me for being straight and holding a mirror up to him.

He doesn't appear to have made any effort to encourage his friend to kick the drugs habit, he just calls him a boring idiot every now and then.

Exodus from London? I just couldn't live anywhere else
Evening Standard (London); Aug 24, 2007;

THE UK is experiencing the biggest exodus of Britons for a hundred years. Some 385,000 people emigrated last year, many of them from London, with Australia, New Zealand and Spain topping the list of most popular destinations. Some doom-mongers regarded these figures as evidence that Britain has gone to the dogs and that people can't leave the country or the capital fast enough.

But if Australia's so much better, why do one million Australians five per cent of the population live outside of Australia? As many as 200,000 Australians expats opt for a life in London rather than in their own country.

Nowhere else on earth has the energy, creativity and sense of possibility that London has. Sure, very few people ever hit the big time in this city, but anyone with dreams of living an interesting life and making something of themselves will visit this town at some point in their lives, adding to the city's electric atmosphere.

Whether you want to write novels, sell samosas or become the hottest drag queen since Ru Paul, nowhere else offers you the scope and freedom to explore your personality and ambitions as London does.

Which estate did RuPaul come from? Which Old Compton Street bar was it kicked off the Gay Liberation movement? Did the Beatles come from Liverpool Street?

It is the most tolerant, open-minded and accepting city on earth.

Insert 'why does Nirpal live here then?' joke here.

Yes, I know New York is a great metropolis. But it's nowhere near as cosmopolitan as London. It's a city of ghettos, determined by class and race.

A black friend of my mine recalled being patronisingly congratulated by a New Yorker for holding hands with his white girlfriend on the subway.

Compared with London, in many ways the Big Apple is still Hicksville. The demographics and housing situation in the capital force rich, poor, black, brown and white to live cheekby-jowel. In east London, you find gay fashion-addicted hipster couples, burka- clad Bangladeshis and middle-aged media types living in the same streets. They might not be the How not to do best of friends; but watching people who look very different from you bringing home their shopping and taking their kids to school humanises them, and makes rabid bigotry absurd.

People lament the anonymity and loneliness of life in London, but that is precisely what makes this city unique. You can be whatever you want here no one cares. Free from the stifling prejudices of curtaintwitching busybodies, London is a city where you can try to become the person you always dreamed of being.

No one is too outrageous (trust me, I've tried pretty hard). Though born and raised here, I never feel like I truly know this city.

It moves with the times too fast for anyone to grasp. Its neighbourhoods change colour and culture every few years, absorbing people and influences from around the world. Londoners are probably the most globally aware people in the world.

I know that the property ladder, problems finding good schools and the stress of city life do drive rational people to forsake the capital. But I don't feel a shred of envy for their new lives. Nowhere else could keep me as interested in life as London does. And that's why you won't find me living anywhere else.

Damnit!

Life passes by but I'm in no hurry to join in
Evening Standard (London); Aug 29, 2007;

HAVING enjoyed such a glorious bank-holiday weekend, most Londoners will this week be moaning about being in the rat race again. But slower-paced people like me childless and working from home can see the modern obsession with busyness for what it is really is: the new religion for a godless society.

People whine about being too busy and nurse absurd illusions of how they'd paint watercolours, do t'ai chi or learn Persian if only they had more time. But the truth is, they deliberately pack every available hour to ensure they don't get a quiet moment.

Busyness is the new mark of self-worth. People publicise how active and stressed their jobs and children keep them in order to maintain the faade of having a meaningful life. The Protestant work ethic is so deep-rooted in our culture that even in an age of affluence and technological quickfixes, people are still compelled to live like hyperactive drones.

They might say they envy my time-rich existence but regular nine- to-fivers barely conceal their disapproval when I tell them I lie in each morning and work at a snail's pace while eating cereal dressed only in my underpants.

I can string a whole day out with a couple of basic chores such as buying milk and cleaning the toilet. When I tell people this, they look at me as if I've done something grossly immoral. The fact that I earn a living and pay my taxes doesn't matter; nor does the fact that much of their officebound time consists of surfing property sites and watching gonzo clips on YouTube. They are disgusted because I have committed the cardinal sin of our era: I do not worship busyness.

When travelling in the Third World, I was always amazed by the locals who could sit impassively during long bus and train journeys without a book, iPod or even a fidget. Now, living alone and without stimulus, I have the same ability to stare into space and literally watch life go by rather than fool myself with a hysterical pretence that I'm in charge of it. It's a lovely feeling, like snoozing with your eyes open.

I'm comfortable with myself and don't feel I'm missing out. People wilfully choose hectic family and professional lives in order to avoid their own company. Give them the time to think about it, and they would be driven mad by their existential emptiness. Children and careers give you too many responsibilities to contemplate big questions about the meaning of life.

I do miss working in an office, but not the sense of mission.

I only long for the gossip and flirtations that come with offices, the fundamental human interactions that are the most fun things in life. But busyness is strictly for the bees.

And yet earlier in the month Nirpal was claiming people were too lazy and fat. Now he's claiming that he does almost nothing and is on his own. He must obviously be living a life of monkish self-abnegation.

Towards the end of August there is that rare beast, a decent article from Nirpal about being an Asian indie music fan in the early Nineties.

I'm not sure whether my database is bust, or whether the only articles that Liz Jones wrote in August were on fashion. So, I'll finish with this article from the Western Daily Press:

Jilted Liz has scared off house sellers in the West
Western Daily Press 31 August 2007

She's the columnist who's left no stone unturned when it comes to revealing the secrets of her love life.

But now journalist Liz Jones has announced she may be moving to Bath to get away from it all.

Liz Jones has become a household name for her weekly column in The Mail on Sunday in which she talks frankly about her disastrous four year marriage to writer Nirpal Dhaliwal.

Before even reaching the sevenyear-itch milestone, the marriage fell into difficulties, with Dhaliwal said to have embarked on seven extra-marital affairs.

Jones has written explicitly about her husband's infidelity, labelling his mistresses 'cow whore bag trollops' or CWBTs for short, and said that last September he celebrated her birthday emailing another woman for a date.

The couple separated this year but not before she had put his name on her house deeds.

She has long talked in her column about moving to the country and revealed that Bath is one of the places that's high on her list. But she fears her honest approach led to her losing a house near the city as she made the vendors uncomfortable when being shown round.

"I have made offers on three properties - two romantic wrecks with parkland in Norfolk, and an immaculate William and Mary house near Bath - none of which has been successful (I think I was so enthusiastic walking round the house near Bath that the owners had second thoughts about selling)," she said.

"I am beginning to despair of finding somewhere perfect, ie, down its own lane, Georgian or thereabouts, with the original stable block, at least 10 acres, and nowhere near an airport or motorway."

Back in May Jones said she had finally decided to divorce Dhaliwal although her latest column said he has moved back in. But the on-off saga doesn't look near to being resolved with Jones saying she can't bear to sleep with him and hates having his clutter in the house.

She said: "I know it is an awful thing to admit but I find having sex with him quite boring; I actually watch Sex and the City over his shoulder' In her columns, which have become compulsive reading, Jones has revealed he has since signed the house back to her, been abusive by calling her an old hag - he is 14 years younger than her - and accused her of having a compulsion to tell everyone all their secrets.

Nirpal Dhaliwal has hit back with an article saying that following the break up, Jones got him dropped by both his agent and accountant.

Hopefully when I get round to the September review they'll be back to slagging each other off in that way we love so much.

Labels: fatism, journalists, Liz Jones, Nirpal Dhaliwal

Maybe Patrick can't help being prejudiced against the overweight, it may be a malfunctioning immune response.

However, at least Patrick is not as bad as my mother, who feeds me lots of delicious food and then complains about how fat I am. Going to the wedding helped, as we met up with some of my cousins, one of whom is reaching James Galdofini proportions, while apparently having no links with the South London mafia.

Labels: fat, fatism, health, personal history

Subconsciously or not, it's easier for the audience to laugh at the fat person if they know that the actor underneath is actually trim. Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor" remakes; Julia Roberts in "America's Sweetheart"; Martin Lawrence in "Big Momma's House"... But to the overweight person sitting in the audience, the experience must be similar to a black person watching an old blackface minstrel show. When the character is presented as mean-spiritedly as Mike Myers' Fat Bastard character from the "Austin Powers" movies or scary-thin Courteney Cox-Arquette's Fat Monica from flashback episodes of "Friends," it becomes outright torture.

Labels: fat, fatism, movies

From the comments to this entry (reposted here before they drop off the bottom of my Haloscan account):

Patrick: Please God, no.

Me: Body fascist!

Patrick: Look, I don't make the rules. I just enforce them.

Jon B: No: You reinforce what society preaches by giving in to what they tell you is attractive, even though through history, the larger figure has been known to be attracted and desired. It's not a rule: It's fascism.
Of course why would anyone expect a skinny fuck like myself to know such a thing?

Dylan: I'm with you JonB. I think most men would admit to wanting a softer woman with more jiggle, if their mates weren't listening. You can't tell me this photograph isn't dead sexy. http://adipositivity.my-expressions.com/archives/9478_1745602162/237191

Patrick: Actually, that picture is hideous and I do not think I'd say otherwise if I were straight. Beyond its mere unattractiveness there is the issue of health.

You reinforce what society preaches by giving in to what they tell you is attractive

Why waste so much energy on trying to distinguish yourself physically from the masses? Just eat well and exercise regularly and worry about your insides a little (the mind and the soul). You'll find that that it was really throws people off; someone who looks like they "fit in" but as soon as they express an opinion they are immediately found to be truly different than the crowd. It's like clobbering them over the head and it is great fun.

Jon B: Actually, that picture is hideous and I do not think I'd say otherwise if I were straight. Beyond its mere unattractiveness there is the issue of health.

-Giving into society once again. You fail to realize that:
A. Obesity is not synonymous with being unhealthy. It's a risk factor, and it can worsen certain conditions. It's also been proven in many studies that while the obese have a higher risk factor, they are less likely to die from certain diseaes (As in getting Diabetes, but having a lower fatality rate while getting it).
B. If you sit around eating shit, refusing to exercise, and you're still thin, you will die before someone who is large that has a better lifestyle. Science has proven that notion on many occasions. It's what you do, not how much you weigh. What a concept. I'm so glad I don't misinterpret what the data says.
-I like distingushing myself from society. Society doesn't tell me what I find attractive, and I am not going to let it. It's amazing what you can achieve when the picture of beauty on a magazine isn't something that defines what you find alluring. You, however, proudly display your prejudice ways, and insinuate that because you find it unattractive, you can speak for the human race. Thank god that's inaccurate on your part.
I'm sorry I find curves or more attractive. Most men would agree that they are attractive, and some would also agree with me that not liking curves is closer to being less straight than liking them. I don't hate thin women, but do you honestly think everyone likes a woman like... ohh...Nicole Richie?

Why waste so much energy on trying to distinguish yourself physically from the masses? Just eat well and exercise regularly and worry about your insides a little (the mind and the soul). You'll find that that it was really throws people off; someone who looks like they "fit in" but as soon as they express an opinion they are immediately found to be truly different than the crowd. It's like clobbering them over the head and it is great fun.

- The movements aligned to this aren't demanding people eat unhealthy and not exercise. They actually ADVOCATE a healthy lifestyle.
I think you tried pulling that weight card on me when I gladly said I was a skinny fuck. Are you running out of attack points Mr. Weight Bigot?

I don't know what Patrick's issues are, quite why he's so vehement that being fat is bad or why he seems determined to sit in the corner that people are fat only because they eat too much and exercise too little and that overweight equals unhealthy, I hope he doesn't expound on that in the hearing of any rugby players or Olympic hammer-throwers.

I've been meaning to link to this post I found via the Big Fat Deal blog, which talks about how a sizeable proportion of post-teen Americans think obesity is a greater threat to public health than drink or drugs. I suspect that this is really about the perception of the plump, fat kids getting bullied at school, the cool kids smoking behind the bike sheds.

Hey there, mainstream media? JOKE’S OVER. Young people believe inhaling poison causes fewer problems than being fat. THIS IS NOT OKAY.

Then there's an article from yesterday's Times, Why I love getting to grips with a fat man. It's especially nice to see a woman talking about her love of Big Handsome Men, as on the few occasions that the mainstream media go anywhere near this area it's all about weedy men and Big Beautiful Women.

Working through comics-related links I find the Fat Wonder Woman blog, dedicated to artist's renditions of a plus-sized Wonder Woman. Some are nicer than others, and the specificity of Wonder Woman over other super-heroines seems a little odd but it's all part of the wonderful tapestry of life.

Then, finally, there's an article I came across from the Village Voice about big lesbians. A study has just been released saying that lesbians are more likely to be overweight than straight women, but as yet no-one can explain why that might be.

What I do wonder about is how, if supposedly the western world is slowly getting fatter, it's taking so long for our media to catch up. Sure, there are exceptions, from what I've heard The Gossip are are a depressingly average, almost mediocre, band, but would I even know they existed if not for their plus-sized front woman Beth Ditto, having a great year after the NME threw aside their fear of girls to make her their coolest person in rock? But the faces we see on the small and large screens are mostly gamine, is Norbit bad because it relies on the idea that a woman being fat is automatically hilarious? When are we going to have a thriller where it's the fat bloke who saves the world? When are we going to see our culture reflecting our own jowly faces and jiggling bellies back at us, rather than frantically going further in the opposite direction, if size 0 is unattainable for most people when are people going to start feeling comfortable in the bodies they're in?

Labels: BBW (Big Beautiful Women), BHM (Big Handsome Men), blogs, comics, fat, fatism, health, lesbian

More Info.

Labels: fat, fatism, Flickr, Hewlett Packard

They say cameras add ten pounds, but HP digital cameras can help reverse that effect. The slimming feature, available on select HP digital camera models, is a subtle effect that can instantly trim off pounds from the subjects in your photos!

Why not be honest?

God, our customers make us sick! You think anyone wants to see your blubbery belly on Flickr? For fucks sake, here's a widget to help encourage you to an eating disorder if you haven't had the common decency to get one already!
[via Feministing]

Labels: fat, fatism, Hewlett Packard