My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

This afternoon, while coming home from coffee with a friend, I decided to stop for an ice cream bar.  Now, I rarely eat ice cream unless it's something special, like handmade gelato, because it makes me sick very fast (meaning I get little mileage out of it) and I don't actually like it enough to suffer for it most days, so I haven't had a mass-produced ice cream in probably ten months, maybe a year.  But today was the first really warm sunny day since I've been back in the UK, and I've had an inordinately stressful couple of months (for reasons that, if you can believe it of me, are too personal to explain), and I was wearing a cute sundress and felt like having an ice cream bar.  So I bought a Magnum in the little shop at the end of my road and proceeded to eat it on my way home. Not two bites in, I passed a middle-aged man, fiddling with something homewares-related on his front stoop, his pit bull watching nearby.  He looked up and caught my eye as I went past,...

The news has been so full of body-image- and obesity- and weight-related articles lately, to the point that I just haven't been able to keep up!  So in the spirit of the new year, and because the media interest in bodies/weight/health doesn't seem to be waning (so I'm sure I'll have plenty more material in the future), I'm cleaning house: here are all the articles I saved up in my email account in 2012 to write individual posts on, which I'm going to share instead through one big link-filled post.  I hope you find these links as interesting as I did (and still do)! This astoundingly brave young woman is doing a similar thing with a photo series to what I'm trying to achieve with the book – I can only hope I've produced something half as affecting and powerful as what she has created. Months ago I stumbled across this website with images of real women's bodies, sometimes accompanied by a paragraph or two about how these women feel about their ...

I just watched an hour and a half long TV show on BBC called ' I Want to Change My Body ', which follows 30 young people who have different things about their bodies that they want to change, from their weight (obviously, since that's usually the #1 complaint), to their boobs or noses or skin or receding hairlines.  It basically validated what I've become more and more sure of in the past ten years: that nearly everyone has issues about something to do with his/her appearance, and a lot of us are tormented enough to take extreme measures (define extreme any way you like: surgery, juice fasts, obsessive makeup use) to try to 'fix' ourselves. The show was fascinating, of course (I'm convinced that learning about people's deepest insecurities is far more voyeuristically stimulating than watching them have sex), but it was also really sad to watch.  I feel like our society is getting more image-obsessive and more neurotic by the year – I'm certainly n...

 If you follow me on Twitter , you'll already know how obsessed I've been recently with a show called Say Yes to the Dress, which is a reality show that follows brides-to-be who are looking for the perfect dress at Kleinfeld's bridal salon in NYC.  I got into the show when I was living with my parents in San Francisco a few years ago, and spending a lot of my free time Tivo-ing reruns of What Not to Wear and other TLC shows (like I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant – NOT recommended for anyone even slightly suggestible).  I'm already a bit dress-obsessed, in general, and I have a weakness for reality TV (the NYTimes says that's okay!), so one episode was all it took to hook me.  I love seeing the different styles of dresses, comparing how they look on different body types, gasping at the incredibly poor taste some brides have and the stunning dresses others choose.  I love tearing up when the dads start to cry and yelling at the entourages when they opine too strongl...

Weight loss surgery is controversial.  This isn't news.  But what you may not realize is that it's not just controversial among thin or 'normal' people, but in the fat community as well. Whenever I visit any sort of 'fat acceptance' website, I'm always startled by the attitude toward GB and surgeries like it (WLS, in short form).  Today, I came across this interesting article on being a 'Smaller Fat' – the strange limbo that those of us who are BMI-defined as obese but who look 'normal' enough to pass – and I was all set to write a post about the main article.  But then I read the comments. One commenter talked about the strong support system she had at her workplace in the medical profession, where people understand that BMI isn't everything and fat people should be understood instead of tormented.  Lovely, right?  But then, in a parenthetical aside, she mentions that one of her supporters is a doctor who "had to autopsy a bunc...

I've always said that being fat is harder on women than it is on men.  Not only is there a lot more societal pressure to be stick thin rather than just healthy, which men don't seem to get, but it's a lot harder to be seen as physically attractive if you're even ten or fifteen pounds overweight. Anyway, it seems I'm not the only one thinking these things.  There's an article in the NYTimes today about overweight and obese women doing worse than men financially, an interesting angle on the effects of obesity, and in it they say: Why doesn’t body size affect men’s attainment as much as women’s? One explanation is that overweight girls are more stigmatized and isolated in high school compared with overweight boys. Other studies have shown that body size is one of the primary ways Americans judge female — but not male — attractiveness. We also know that the social stigma associated with obesity is strongest during adolescence. So perhaps teachers and pee...

Carnie Wilson, the woman who made Gastric Bypass famous by streaming video of her operation online, has been through a few ups and downs (and a few book deals, and People magazine covers...) in the past 10 years.  But I hadn't seen much of her the past few years, until now.  A few days ago, I was cruising my favorite gossip site, DListed , and I came across a little blurb about Carnie.  She hasn't been in the news much, so I'd assumed she was just getting on with her life.  But I guess she's probably been trying to stay out of the public eye, since she's gained back a good bit of the weight she lost twice: first right after the surgery, and again a few years later after putting it back on.  So.  Finally, someone in the public sphere admits that GB isn't the SKINNY SOLUTION everybody thinks it is.  I feel validated, and relieved, even as I feel kind of sorry for Carnie; she went through all the ups and downs with the media watching, and even though...

Last month I posted about a new (then) TV show called 'Mike and Molly', about two chunky people in luurve.  I thought it was probably a good idea for the media to try portraying fat people as real human beings who fall in love and make out and shit, but apparently some people are offended by it.  Seems the mere thought of two fatties getting in each others' atmospheres is enough to make some skinny bitches hurl.  Maura Kelly , for one. Now, I'm not really interested in telling you my thoughts on the matter, because I think you can probably guess them (if not, I'll sum up: I hate my body, and think it's fat and therefore disgusting, but I also believe that anyone and everyone has a right to get it on with a consenting adult, and I definitely don't think two fat people is any grosser an image than two old people or two teenagers or two of anybody whose naked coupling isn't thrust at us from tv and movie screens on a regular basis).  Ok, so I kind of tol...

There's been a lot of chatter in the media lately about the trials and tribulations of traveling under the influence of a couple (hundred?) extra pounds.  And somewhere between Kevin Smith being kicked off Southwest Airlines and the constant barrage of fat-fear and obesity epidemic outcry, a few pieces have emerged that put a chubbily human face on the matter (without too much whining or crying).  I think I'm going to start linking to such pieces (if only to keep the blog alive for a while as every remotely interesting original thought goes straight into the 'book' file).  First up, Traveling While Fat , from last weekend's NY Times.  It's a pretty good start down the 'fat is human' road, although I have to wonder whether a woman could write something so matter of fact, with so little apology for her size. Lord knows I couldn't.  Hence, the GB, and now, the memoir in which I constantly express a need to apologize for my still-unacceptable size. ...

There have been very few fat (ie normal to overweight) people on television in my lifetime, and the ones who did grace my HD were usually the subject of a reality show.  If I saw someone above a size 4, s/he was either on a scary documentary about morbid obesity (I'm not making light of that, by the way, although the fear tactics rub me the wrong way), or part of a competition to lose weight faster than other heavy people (I know some of you really love The Biggest Loser, but I still think it's a bit cruel), or, once and never again (yet), a Bachelor-esque competition to win the heart of a meaty man who digs 'curvy women.' But regardless of how I feel about the portrayal of fat people on television, the shows that pack a bit more poundage must be doing pretty well, since they're multiplying every year.  I can think of at least 4 get-fit shows, where BL used to be the only one.  TLC has upped its number of weight-centric fear documentaries, too.  And now fictional...

... but the dude over at Egotastic has finally posted photos of someone above a size 2.*  Not only that, he defends her hotness against those people who would say she's too fat to be attractive in a bikini!  AND since the blog doesn't have a comments section, I can just pretend that's the end of it.  No trolls!  Hooray huzzah and yippeeee! That is all.** * Yes, I'm aware she's probably still only a size 6 or something, but just let me have my moment anyway. **Okay, yes, I am aware that I haven't posted in forever .  There's a post-in-waiting about my recent trip to Mexico (and bikinis), but this was more pressing, and less work, so you'll just have to wait for the mexico post.

My friend Courtney sent me the link to this NY Times article this morning, and I found it really interesting and wanted to share. I can't decide how I feel about it. There's always been a part of me that agrees with the idea that fat is ok, and all of me agrees that you can be fat and fit, but I think in a country like this (or in human society in general) people like to hear absolutes ("diet" or "don't diet"), so I fear the caveats and in-betweens and ifs/ands/buts will fall on deaf ears and we'll still be divided into anorexics/judgmental bitches and obese mcdonalds-eaters. But maybe I'm being too cynical! Courtney seems optimistic. What about you guys? Any thoughts on the matter?

Check out this opinion piece by Nia Vardalos, the writer and star of one of my fave chick flicks, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I love that she not only makes some really great points, but she also proves her mettle as a writer, beyond movie dialogue (which is tough enough!).

Courtesy of my friend Derek, here's a fairly hilarious bit from The Onion that's quasi-related to the last post (if mildly offensive to the point i was trying to make!).

So I'm watching my trashy TV (VH1, 'nuff said), and unfortunately it isn't recorded so I can't fast-forward through the commercials. Or maybe that's fortunate, because if I could fast-forward I would have missed something that made me really happy: an advertisement for Nair Shower Power. Why, you ask, would I want to see a Nair ad? I mean, I don't even use Nair, because my skin is super sensitive and breaks out (although, according to the ad, the new Nair is great for sensitive skin!). But I saw something that made me hit instant replay twice , and I was pleased to discover that my eyes had not been deceived. The ad showed four women doing some kind of choreographed dance in the usual Nair style: short shorts, high heels, lots of leg. But this time something was different. One of the girls was normal, or, dare I say, a little thick ! Now, Nair ads have always featured borderline normal-looking women. Slender, but not stick-figures (which makes sense, becau...