Fat Chicks Rule

SIze Discrimination is real.

So it’s true!  You can’t make a fat person thin by:
Shame, dieting, surgery, pills, taking away their children, putting us on reality shows, giving us pseudo psychological advice, graded how fat are children are or that telling us to just have one less cookie a day. 

That’s right we are still getting fatter.  But of course we are still base this on BMI which is a flawed measurement and a scale that still lists 25-29.5 as overweight although studies say this is the range that people live the longest.

Speaking of taking away children,  in Missouri a man and his wife were denied the right to adopt a child which forced his to get stomach surgery.  The worst part is that that had previously adopted a child without incident and he was just as fat then.  This just goes to show size discrimination is as worse than its ever been and we need laws like the one we are trying to pass in Massachusetts (PDF) that protect parents as well as other fat people.  This man and his wife are good people who opened their home to foster children, they don't need crap like this.

And speaking of Surgery, two studies say you will live longer if you have weight loss surgery.  SueW who maintains an excellent blog and website about WLS thinks not

National of Size presents Size Friendly TV to grade TV episodes for positive and negative characters of size with an intro to the program on YouTube

As you know TV is not very positive when it comes to portraying fat people.

Case in point I had been asked to appear on a daytime show, but declined when I found out I would be debating a fitness nut.  I won't mention this person by name but s/he has told his fat female clients they wouldn't find husbands unless they lose weight.  I was tempting to go on just to tell them that not only was this fat chick going to be celebrating her 7th wedding anniversary (Yesterday BTW) but I was celebrating by hiking in the mountains, then taking a swim.

On to other stupid TV, I hadn't even planned to mention this but ABC has a show called Fat March in which fat contestants March from I think Boston to DC.  Not to prove they are healthy but to lose weight.  However this article made me decide to mention it.  I don't know what's worse the fitness people who chastised the producers for making the fat people (who seemed to assume were out of shape because they were fat) for walking too much or the push of weight loss over fitness.  Some of the producers were surprised over how well the fatties were doing.   My concern (besides the stupidity of the show) is what happens afterward.  Will they continue walking (which I think is a great idea) or stop when they stop losing weight.   

Fat Chicks are in the movies: Hairspray has now made over 100 million and you can watch Plus! a movie about plus size modeling.

Also the Glamazons (a New York based group) got to make it to the top 8 of America's Got Talent.  Although they did not make it to the top 4, there is still a fat man in the top 4 by the name of Cas Haley.

Finally putting my money where my mouth is.

Hairspray has now made 92 million and it appears to be a sleeper hit.  Last week it was #6 now it is back to #5.

And I finally saw it. 

So here is my review. 

I start off with the bad stuff so I can get it out of the way.  John Travolta in a fat suit and fat=food obsessed jokes were the only thing keeping this movie from being truly size positive and as good as the original.  I could not believe they could not find a single fat actor in all of Hollywood?  Hello? How about Harvey Feirstein who was in the original Broadway show? 

But on to the good stuff, the fabulous Nikki Blonsky, who is not wearing a fat suit and is an unknown actress.  Nikki is wonderful in the movie.  She's not only adorable but she has an amazing singing voice.   She is very powerful in her role.

The script itself has some funny and thought provoking lines. One of my favorites that now appears on my myspace page is this:

"I think I've kind of been in a bubble... thinking that fairness was gonna just happen. It's not. People like me are gonna have to get up... and go out and fight for it." Tracy, "Hairspray"

And as always Queen Latifah is wonderful.

I give Hairspray at B on the fat positive rating scale.

In the news...

Hairspray is now made 78 million and it seems to be a sleeper hit!  Come on! Let’s make Nikki Blonsky a superstar!

Lane Bryant is again working on trying to get clothes to fit.

With all this targeting of fat kids, as well as the eternal push for girls to be thin and "pretty", it's not surprising: Overweight Kids: College Less Likely   

Thanks to the Sun Times for "Research supporting latest obesity study is pretty thin" which plugs some holes in the NEJM article.