Author Archives: fatchicksings

International No Longer Dedicating my Life to Dieting Day

Hello out there boys and girls, and happy International No Diet Day or INDD. Today is a day when I celebrate and honor the decision I made many years ago to stop letting a number on a scale dictate the confines of my life. It’s a day to celebrate the decision I made to celebrate my body, every bump and curve of it, as is. It’s a day to celebrate the decision I made to stop putting my life on hold until after I reached an arbitrary body size number–be in the number on the scale or the number on the tag in my dress.

Now it’s easy for outsiders looking in, who may understand nothing about my struggle to suppose that I’m celebrating the day I decided to give up on myself–the day that I decided to give up on being healthy–the day I decided to be fat. But this could not be further from the truth. I did NOT give up on myself, I made the choice to save myself. I decided to stop “weighting around” to achieve and maintain a body that fit into some arbitrary description of social acceptability and start LIVING my best life in the body I had right at that very moment. And I decided that counting calories and calculating points was not an effective success strategy, but rather a recipe for frustration and stagnation.

So lest you are confused about what INDD means to me, I’d like to offer this quick reference guide.

When you wish me happy International No Diet Day, you are actually wishing me:

Happy eat spaghetti for breakfast if that is what your body is hungry for day.

Happy I’ll stop eating cookies because I am full right now and can have more tomorrow day.

Happy I’ll eat vegetables because my body craves them and they are delicious day.

Happy, I’m no longer obsessed with calculating the number of calories burned while dialing the phone day.

Happy, what’s on my plate or in my grocery cart is none of your darn business day.

Happy I don’t have to take of my earrings for my weekly public weigh-in day.

Happy, I am inspired by and enjoy beautiful, delicious and wonderful food day.

As you might have guessed, I am a BIG fan of INDD. And I hope you are too! Let’s start by taking just a single day to honor our bodies and enjoy every bite that life has to offer. I did that about 15 years ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

So my dear reader, happy your body is awesome just the way it is day. I sincerely hope it brings you nothing but joy!

Love,

The Fat Chick

P.S. If you’re enjoying the blog, why not sign up for the Fat Chick Clique. Get access to cool free stuff, like the new resistance workout I launched this week at the American Diabetes Association Active Living Booth. Enjoy! And don’t forget to live every moment to the fullest.

Stuff That Weighs More Than Me: The Titanic

My “Soap Box”–The Right Now Show: Episode 011

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In this episode I offer a bit of perspective on the controversy surrounding the videos recently released by Dove. This episode also features a special treat–a poem composed and performed by The Fat Chick her own self!

For Additional Discussion:

Here’s the original video by Dove.

Here’s a brand new column in the LA Times about the ads.

A great piece by Golda Poretsky on this same topic:

HuffPo Asks, Social Science Experiment or Brilliant Marketing Ploy?

A scandal erupts when a Craigslist ad for a previous Real Women project is made public:

A fun parody with men in the starring roles this time:

Redefining Female Superheroes

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I recently came across this blog post about a young woman who dared to go to Comic Con and participate in a portfolio review to share some of her drawings of female superheroes. Among the drawings she submitted was this picture:

Apparently, the reviews of the above drawing were rather brutal, not because the drawing wasn’t good, but because the woman in the drawing didn’t represent the proper proportions necessary for saving the world. The artist reported that one reviewer said:

“Her breasts are much too small and do not have the lift that superhero women should have. Her jawline is fat and her neck much too long. The style of her hair is clunky and does not flow in a sense that a super human would. Her hips, waist and thighs are too big and she honestly looks fat. No one is going to want to read a comic with a fat female protagonist. I honestly recommend looking at issues of Sport’s Illustrated to get the right anatomy. Those women are the peak of human perfection, and that is what we want in this industry.”

Okay. So what we want is the “peak of human perfection”–which for women, means perky breasts, thin hips, waist and thighs and flowing hair. So while she’s saving the world, she can do promotional spots for hair conditioners and late night infomercials for fitness gimmicks? Because the real superpower of a woman is boosting the economy with multifarious credit cards–assuaging her insecurity with extremely expensive but patently useless products, right? Right?

It’s perhaps not too surprising that a lot of people are starting to find this notion of female superhero as supermodel kind of frustrating. And naturally, it has spawned some delicious and highly creative backlash. (Yay, Internetz!) There’s this contest created on DeviantART inviting artists to submit their interpretations of a a fat female superhero. The creator of the contest shares her delight at both the incredible diversity of the drawings submitted and the fact that cartoonists are willing to step out of their comfort zone to draw body diversity. There are so many cool pictures on there, it’s worth a look. Seriously.

Then there’s this recent project, where Alexandria Law takes pictures of little girls dressed up like superheroes and draws them. The photos of the kids are so cool. These kids are clearly are having fun while demonstrating some well needed “girl power”. I also love how the resultant drawings are powerful without being hypersexualized. (Is that a real word? If not, it should be.)

By the way, any kid that pairs a tutu and body armor wins super extra bonus points in my book. And, I was heartened to see some movement towards recognizing that superheroes don’t all come in Sports Illustrated packages.

Which leads us to the origin of the picture on the top of this post. It was created by Chicago artist twin sisters Sarah and Catherine Satrun. They created this piece for sale at C2E2 (Chicago Comic Entertainment Expo in part as a response to those recent ads by Dove. (More on that tomorrow). And this image has started to go super, mega, viral. Which is curious in light of the reviewers statement that “nobody is interested in a comic with a fat female protagonist”.

So, my dear readers. Here’s to the understanding that we are ALL Wonderwomen. We all have the power to fly. If not on stubby little wings like this fat chick, or an invisible plane, maybe with your very own superhero cape!

Then again, maybe not…

Love,

The Fat Chick

Ads, Women and Mental Health

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I recently came across this lecture from Jill Kilbourne and wanted to share it with you. In one of the classes I’ve been teaching we’ve been talking extensively about media’s role in women’s self esteem. I think it’s so very important to understand with Ms. Kilbourne has to say here. That we often find ourselves viewing magazines or television ads or billboards, and feeling inadequate because we don’t look like the women in the pictures. But, hello, even the women in the pictures don’t look like the women in the pictures. With Photoshop, no woman need ever have flaws. And I’ve heard through back channels that some actresses have right in their contract that their image on television must be slightly vertically stretched to make them appear taller and thinner.

Couple this with the fact that hardly anyone approaching average size appears on television or in advertising. The average American woman is a size 12 on the top and a 14 on the bottom. Most women on television or in advertising are a size 2, 0 or even 00. To give you a frame of reference, when Cameryn Manheim was on The Practice she was about a size 14 and quite tall. When I met her in person, I was struck by how average her size looked in real life. But on TV she seemed pretty large. Now some say that the camera adds 15 pounds, but I don’t really think that’s what’s at work here. What is at work here is that she was surrounded by a whole cast of people that were very, very significantly smaller than average. So by contrast, she seemed bigger.

I sometimes wish I could have a special Photoshop tool or television/video filter that would allow me to make everybody on TV and in ads look a little more average or a little more normal. I think it would help the rest of us gain some perspective on how other people look. But when I get really down, I go do a little “field work”. I go to a mall, or a gym or a public pool, I sit on a bench or in a chair and I just look at people. I regain my sense of how real people look. People all looking SO different from one another. People with tattoos and scars and stretch marks. People of all different shapes and sizes and colors. All different kinds of hair in all different places. Smiles shining out of faces not lit for the cameras, but rather lit from within, from lives well lived. I regain my perspective. It really feels great. Maybe you’d like to try it and report back? I’d love to hear how it went!

Love,

The Fat Chick

Here we Go Again

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I really wish I was making this stuff up. Once again, we’ve got a blogger (female this time) spilling “ink” in a very public forum about the shape of the body of a professional cheerleader. It seems that CBS Houston Blogger Claire Crawford recently felt the need to criticize the body of NBA cheerleader Kelsey Williams.

Crawford reportedly said in the blog:

The Rockets looked terrible in Game 1, but some say they weren’t the only bad-looking people on the court…

This pretty blonde has been criticized by some folks in OKC for having “pudginess” around her waistline. We’re not trying to be ugly. We are just discussing what men like in women, specifically NBA cheerleaders.

Crawford apparently also said in the blog:

But if she’s comfortable wearing that tiny outfit and dancing for NBA fans, then good for her. Besides … not every man likes women to be toothpick skinny. I’d say most men prefer a little extra meat on her bones.

(Insert facepalm here along with slow sad headshake.) To add insult to injury, a poll was posted at the bottom allowing the public to “weigh in” on whether or not they thought Williams was “too chunky” to be a NBA cheerleader. Reportedly the available options were:

“the perfect look to be an NBA cheerleader,”
“she could use some tightening up in her midsection”
“she has no business wearing that outfit in front of people.”

Which begs the question of what other options might have been made available. Some suggestions include:

Are you f$%*ing kidding me?
Just how desperate are you to up your “hit count”?
Is it possible to be a total misogynist and a woman?
This blogger has no business writing for a major news outlet or anywhere else for that matter.

In other news that came some distance towards restoring my hope in humanity, it seems that many, many people agreed with point number 4 and caused an uproar around the blog post and the blogger. Some suggested that both Crawford and her overseeing editor be fired.

You gotta wonder how the conversation between Crawford and her overseeing editor might have sounded:

Yay! We stirred up nasty, offensive controversy on our blog. Wow people are really worked up, will ya look at that hit count? Oh, oh. Now they are calling for our heads and asking for us to be fired. Better fix it. Blog post? WHAT blog post? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Yup. Shortly after the proverbial poop hit the propeller the blog post was taken down. Not only that, but all other posts by Crawford were removed from the site as well. According to the Daily Mail, Crawford has since deleted her Twitter, Linkedin, and Myspace accounts. At first I thought, “serves her right. Maybe we won’t have to hear any more nonsense from her for a while.” Except, well, not really. Lost Ogle suggests that Claire Crawford is really just a pen name for CBS Digital Content Manager Anna-Megan Raley. So it’s quite possible that “Claire” and her “managing editor” were having a conversation in Anna-Megan Raley’s head (since they are possibly the very same person).

Well, isn’t that convenient? What a great technique! First create disposable online “characters”. Next have them say offensive things likely to stir up lots of noise. Finally, when things get too hot, just “fire” the pretend person and remove all evidence of them from your site.

Honestly, I debated about even writing this blog post. You know the number one rule on the internet is, “don’t feed the trolls”. But at least this post is not in any way linked to anything likely to give more traffic to CBS. But I ask you my dear readers, do you think it’s a sign of progress that so many of us have a fit when we read a post like the one by the alleged Ms. Crawford? And by being upset, are we just playing into the hands of the media outlets who publish this bile, or using a public forum to fight body shaming. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Love,

The Fat Chick

You Don’t Need to Sell Soap to Be Beautiful!

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I was so very excited when I came across this in my facebook feed. Fat positive blogger and artist phenom Rachele AKA The Nearsighted Owl has a project called The Fat Babe project. All you do is send in a photo of yourself and a link to your blog, and she will create a fat and fabulous artist’s rendering of your gorgeousness for FREE! Postcards and greeting cards featuring your fabulous form are available for modest fee, so you can send your sexiness to your friends and family.

This is just one of a series of opportunities to be the subject of fat positive art. Of course Substantia Jones has been doing amazing artistic photography of fat subjects for years. You can see her work at adipositivity.com. And if you’re ever in or around New York, you can contact her about being the subject of a fat positive photo shoot.

And of course, there’s the work of Les Toil, who has been creating artsy drawings of fat chicks for many years. It costs a little bit more but who can argue with the gorgeousness of the work? And you get a number of prints and a CD featuring YOU in all your splendor.

I think all of this work is important in many ways. In light of that Dove Viral Video, with the creepy forensic artist sketching the insecurities of conventionally beautiful women in a mood-lit semi-modern loft to super saturated sugary soundtrack, these artist are working to actually expand our body consciousness–unhindered by a need to sell soap.

So hurrah for the size diverse sketch artists and the pulchritudinous painters and the photographers who help the world view bodies through a wide angle lens! Who knows, you just might see a whole different view of yours truly, very soon!

Love,

The Fat Chick

Big Fat Ripoff: Too Heavy to Tan

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This week a story is surfacing about a woman in Akron who was told after she signed up for a month of tanning that she could not use the lay down tanning beds if she was over 230 lbs. Kelly McGrevey was allowed to use Aloha tanning salon’s one stand up tanning booth, but when it was broken, she was told she simply couldn’t tan. When Kelly asked for her money back, Aloha refused. Kelly had never been told that she could only use the stand up booth, and the salon was unable to give her any information about when the stand up booth would be fixed.

Now look. While there are some awesome facilities for bronzing, tanning salons are notorious for creating crazy policies and never, ever offering refunds. The tanning salon had an F rating with the Better Business Bureau and had Kelly done her homework, she might have been less surprised by the shady business practices. But I think the real surprise was probably with the employees of Aloha. I doubt they expected that Kelly would have the guts to make much of a fuss about the new policy. I’ve no doubt they were shocked when Kelly went public and they found themselves being interviewed by a local investigative reporter. Because I suspect that they felt they would be protected from any negative repercussions for their bad behavior by the shame the fat girl felt about her body.

Except that’s not what happened at all. And I think this should serve as a wake up call for businesses everywhere who are count on fat people’s willing compliance with their bogus policies. Fat people are fed up. And we’re rising up. Whether it’s shaming at a fitness center or the requirement to submit to tests and pay more for company sponsored health insurance, people of size seem less likely to stand idly by these days. So companies who shame fat folks should take note, that big girl you shame might just walk away crying, or she might be your ticket to a not so comfortable spot on the evening news. And I for one, am cheering.

Love,

The Fat Chick