Help Remove Derrogatory Radio Commercial Against Fat People

I just received this message from the NAAFA Group on Facebook:

Darliene Howell posted an announcement to the cause NAAFA – National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

—————-
WE RECEIVED AN EMAIL FROM KATHY HERNANDEZ OF CLUB CATALINA IN SAN DIEGO ON A DERROGATORY RADIO COMMERCIAL AGAINST FAT PEOPLE.

KATHY STATES:

A commercial that is currently running on a San Diego radio station starts out with two females talking to each other about why the one girl has her refrigerator stocked full of beer. She is asking her questions like are you having a party?

The other girl says no I’m using it to get guys. She than starts telling her friend that she’s too fat to get a guy unless she gets him drunk so that’s why she has a refrigerator full of beer where she lives to be able to have sex.

The commercial goes on to say if they call Anti Gym and lose this weight in their fat stomach and fat butt than they won’t need to put beer goggles on the men they want to have sex with.

I have NEVER heard such a disgusting and nasty commercial. I know the economy is bad and everyone needs money but 93.3 FM needs to be boycotted until they get some morales and realize this commercial is HIGHLY discriminatory against people of size. This commercial is telling our young children, teenagers, and anyone who is a person of size that they are not worthy of a person to love them because they are fat, and we have to trick people into sleeping with us because we aren’t thin.

I urge everyone to take 2 minutes out of your day and call the manager at 93.3 and let him know EXACTLY what you think of this type of vulgar and discriminatory advertisement. His name is Jimmy Steel at 858-715-3155. I talked to Tanya from 93.3 who is an intern there and she agrees as most do who work at 93.3 that this commercial needs to be removed. I also talked to Hula who was also very sympathetic but also told me this commercial has been running for about a week and a half.

I will be posting this in 38 yahoo groups today, my space, direct emails and of course NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance). I am asking everyone to repost this on my space, forward to everyone in their email address and call Jimmy Steel at 93.3 @ 858-715-3155 to let him know your feelings on this discriminatory commercial they are now running on 93.3 I will NOT be listening to 93.3 until I get a phone call from Jimmy Steel letting me know that this commercial is no longer being aired.

Kathy Hernandez
Club Catalina in San Diego
93.3 do the right thing and take this garbage down now!!

After a quick Google Search I came up with the following article from Daily Camera. Here are some tasty bits from the article about the way Anti Gym operates:

Emily Akers forgot to turn in her food log. As penance, she has to carry a rubber chicken throughout her workout.

If you slack off too much, personal trainers will chuck Hostess Cup Cakes at you and “moo” at you. Sometimes they shoot you with Nerf darts or handcuff you to the treadmill.

This is the home of slogans such as “Too chubby; never find a hubby,”

CBS television and radio dropped Karolchyk after thousands of complaints. In one commercial, Karolchyk shoves a crying, overweight woman onto a couch so that her cake smashes in her face.

On Feministing, readers question how such discrimination is even legal, calling it degrading, junior-high, stereotyping and sick.

And instead of talking about health benefits of fitness, Karolchyk talks about sex.

“We’re honest. People go to work out to look better,” he says. “We don’t care about your cholesterol and blood pressure. If you look better, it will come down anyway. We measure sexiness.”

I’m actually feeling exhausted and a bit nauseous from reading about Michael Karolchyk. Please help make these ads go away. I know that Big Fat Blog wrote about this gym, which has intentions of spreading its evil in franchises around the country, but I’m still looking for that link. If you can find it please post it in the comments.

By the way, in addition to having a “Ravish Room” — the private exercise room for members with acceptably low BMI, and hosting cocktail parties for “hot” members only, they also offer barf buckets in the exercise area.

The New Miss Surrey A Beautiful Size 16 Girl

Yesterday 16 year-old Chloe Marshall beat many other slimmer hopefuls to be crowned Miss Surrey. She is on her way to the Miss England competition.

The full article in the Daily Mail states that the teenager, who has been signed up by the Models Plus agency, said most of her rivals were size eight or ten.

The article quotes Chloe as saying:

“Everybody thinks you have to be a tall, slim blonde and I’m a curvy brunette,” she added. “I want to show it is possible to be beautiful and not a standard size zero.

“The reaction I’ve had is great. Other girls have told me I have really boosted their confidence, which is terrific.”

No matter your personal feelings about beauty competitions I think that this is a fantastic step towards sanity in a thin-obsessed world.

I Didn’t Get The Memo

I put this blog on the World Wide Webernet (Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s very famous you know.) and asked people to come and chat with me about plus size fashion (it’s very “in” right now) and feeling good about your body, and Health at Every Size.

Some people stopped by and left some comments and I thought, “Yay!” (that was what I thought) “Yay! People are reading me. You like me you really like me.” Or something like that — I forget what my exact thought was but you get the picture.

I tried to be a little controversial and wrote about people who try to bring you down and gave some advice columnesque (I made up that word) tips for how to love the hater and don’t let the bastards get you down.

I offered fashion advice and shopping encouragement for full figured gals who want to shop online. I consider myself a self-taught expert you know.

And now every blogger who blogs about these similar things is talking about some article in Bitch magazine that I won’t even link to because honestly it’s rude crap and poorly written so why would you want to read it anyway?

But I digress. So everyone is writing about how there’s a lot of talk going around about “good” fat people (I think these are fat people who eat vegetables or those with eating disorders who shouldn’t be blamed whether they eat vegetables or not) versus “bad” fat people (I think this is Fatty McFatterson who doesn’t eat veggies but loves candy and watches soap operas all day and therefore is to be blamed for all that fat) and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON.

I feel like I just walked in to a room full of people just as someone says, “So then the Rabbi said…you think that’s fat, you should see my kreplach! And then everyone bursts out laughing, and a few people are offended (which just means it was a good joke) and I’m standing here poking the person next to me with my elbow whispering, “what did he say?” But the person next to me is too busy wiping tears from her eyes and trying to catch her breath and I never find out what was so funny.

Truth be told I often feel that way.

Is it too much to ask to be one of the blogs included when there’s going to be some mud slinging? Hello?! I’m heeeere. All I ask is that someone send me the memo.

Until I get on the mailing list for insider memos please visit these other blogs because they are very well written and have important, sensible things to say.

On this matter of good fat people versus bad fat people Kate Harding, Unapologetically Fat, Thoughtracer,, and a really great post by babble — please also read the comments on these topics. Very illuminating.

Health is a subject that fires everyone up: What to Eat, What Not to Eat, How to Eat (specifically how to chew and swallow), How to Move our Bodies and How Often, and what it MEANS if we do one thing or another.

Health at Every Size (HAES) and Intuitive Eating (IE) seems to me to be a way out of the morass of self denigrating behaviors. I am learning about both but so far I am happier with my body than I’ve been in a while and I give credit to HAES and IE.

This does not mean that I am insisting that anyone else do it my way or they are wrong. This does not mean that I am going to lecture you in this column. It just means that I might talk about my experiences from time to time because it is my blog after all, and sometimes I will talk about how I feel about my body but mostly I like to talk about shopping.

Please read these blog posts about a very disturbing website operated by Proctor & Gamble, that is practically a How-To Guide for Getting Your Own Eating Disorder that specifically targets young girls. If you are the kind of person who writes letters of protest then I encourage you to visit The F-Word because Rachel has provided information for writing letters. Rachel is an enormously talented writer who speaks calmly in the face of ignorance and hatred. She gives me hope when I can only sputter with outrage. Paul at Big Fat Blog, and the amazing Harriet Brown have also posted beautifully written articles about this truly offensive site.

Please take the time to give these blogs a visit. Thank you.

Mo Pie and The Rotund have spooky mind reading skillz

Oh yes it is absolutely true. Mo Pie and The Rotund are reading my mind.

I post an image of an early 1900′s advertising poster about The Tape Worm “diet” on the same day that the lovely and talented Mo Pie posts about The Tape Worm “diet” and crazy weight loss fads including (god help us) drinking pee pee.

I am halfway through writing my post ripping The Learning Channel a new one for their new infomercial disguised as programming when I notice that The Rotund wrote hers first, said some of the exact same things I was going to say — only she said it funnier (gah!) so please read what she said because besides being a mind reader she is funny and totally awesome and has a book deal.

Hey I just thought of something really spooky. Maybe they’re not reading my mind after all and maybe…I’m reading theirs! If so I should start thinking about going to the race track.

Maybe I can get a show on The Learning Channel? “I Can Teach YOU to read mindz!” Nah it won’t work. Uri Geller would throw a bunch of bent spoons at me.

Respectfully tell the Ladies “Get Plump”

I came across the first advertising poster on BFDBlog last year so when I found the second one I thought it would be fun to post them together for a bit of nostalgia.

Remember when ladies were encouraged to gain weight in order to improve both their health and their attractiveness? Remember those nights by the fire playing charades, sitting around the spinet singing songs and reciting poetry to each other…while eating tape worms?

No? Well, neither do I. I did find both posters a little hard to read (I was squinting even with my glasses on) so I enlarged the images and copied out the text in their entirety to make it easier for you. The second one was really hard to read but that’s mostly because of subject…ewwww.

Click on the pic to view full size.

Ritter & Co. Dealers in Fine General Merchandise
Respectfully tell the Ladies
Get Plump

With Professor Williams’ Famed “Fat-Ten-U” Foods

Why suffer tortures with interior mechanical devices that artificially fatten? Don’t look like the poor unfortunate on the left who, shorn of her artificial inflationary devices & pads, must, in the confines of her bedroom, through shame, try to cover her poor thin figure from the gaze of her beloved spouse.

A Testimonial

The accompanying portrait is that of Sarah MacHenry, Philadelphia, posing with her two sisters, who writes: “In four weeks Professor William’s famed FAT-TEN-U FOODS increased my weight 39 pounds, gave me new womanly vigor & developed me finely. My two sisters also use FAT-TEN-U and have gained much needed fleshiness. Because of our newly found vigor we have taken up Grecian Dancing and have leading roles in all local productions.”

End Despair

These foods cure nerve and brain exhaustion, which you know as general debility. They make pale folks pink and thin folks plump and weak folks well and despairing folks happy. They will make you young all your life. You know it is better to be a young old woman than an old young woman!

No tonics, nerviness, sarsaparillas, or other medicines are necessary when FAT-TEN-U FOODS are taken. $1.00 a bottle at RITTER AND CO.

Professor William’s “Fat-Ten-U” Foods are guaranteed to make
The Thin PLUM & ROSY with Honest Fleshiness of Form.

I would very much like to know where I can go to learn Grecian Dancing and hopefully have a leading role in a local production. ED

Eat! Eat! Eat! & Always Stay Thin

No Danger
No Diet
No Baths
No Exercise

FAT the ENEMY that is shortening your life BANISHED!

How? With Sanitized Tape Worms
Jar Packed

Easy to Swallow!
No Ill Effects!

Well thank goodness they are SANITIZED!

Pierce Brosnan’s Wife Looking Hot on the Beach

Keely Shaye Smith the beautiful full figured wife of Pierce Brosnan on a beach in Hawaii wearing a little bikini. Wow. I think she looks fabulous.

If you follow the above link you will read gems of insight such as, “Snide remarks on the blogosphere demonstrate that weight is one of the last arenas where one can be politically incorrect without repercussions.”

Really? You don’t say?

And this piece of brilliance, “And, say psychologists, such comments destroy the self-confidence of everyday women and only feed the frenzy to be thin.”

Shocking! But wait…there’s more!

“I think it’s great that she is proud of her body,” said S. Tia Brown, senior editor for InTouch Weekly. “To be in a photo in a bikini in your 40s and not be petite, speaks to her confidence. It takes even more courage because her husband is considered a sex symbol.”

The article also notes, “Her husband, who played James Bond and has been called “the sexiest man alive,” said he thought his wife was “stunning.”

“I love my wife’s curves,” Brosnan told Vogue.”

And now I love Pierce Brosnan more than ever. And that is saying something because I have loved him since he was Remington Steele.

Lisa Marie Presly Attacked For Baby Weight

In another example of the media placing preposterous importance on a woman’s weight remaining consistently thin, Reuters reported over the weekend that Lisa Marie Presly is suing the Daily Mail for an article they wrote, gleefully attacking her for “piling on the pounds,” when in fact she is pregnant.

“Once they got a glimpse of my expanding physique a few days ago, they have been like a pack of coyotes circling their prey whilst eerily howling with delight,” she wrote on her blog at MySpace.com.

There was a time when it was considered incredibly rude to mention a woman’s weight not just because someone might be offended but for this exact reason — maybe she’s pregnant.

Women have had the vote since 1920, which is not a very long time really and yet, I feel that 88 years is long enough to realize that women are human beings rather than creatures merely existing for the purpose of being “eye-candy” and even so, whether or not a woman is visually appealing to a potential suitor is incredibly subjective. Yet still today women are scrutinized for many things that seem to have nothing to do with considering us with basic human dignity:

* Can a woman be professional? Can we compete with men in the workplace? Do we deserve to receive equal pay for equal work?

* Does our age show? Women are devalued in our society as we age. The Oprah has jumped on this bandwagon with alarming frequency.

* Does a woman have value if the men who publish Maxim think we could lose a few pounds?

I am horrified that these items are still even a question. I know that it’s not like it’s a surprise that sexism and male chauvinism exist but it continues to burn me up anyway.

I know that Lisa Marie is not suing because she is a woman who is heavy and is offended that the Daily Mail made fun of her. She is suing because pregnant is not the same as being fat and her weight should not be subject to the court of public opinion.

Some of my Celebration readers may disagree with me on my outrage over this event. Maybe some of you will feel that women and men who are fat are met with such heavy disapproval that to feel sorry for a rich, thin, female celebrity who is angry that someone called her fat is a distraction from the issue of Fat Acceptance. I remember that there were some snarky posts on a few Fat Acceptance blogs that Jennifer Love-Hewitt had some nerve complaining about being called fat.

But I think that we must stand together, women of all sizes and ages, and affirm that at the very least, the Suffrage Movement and the Women’s Rights movement afford us a vote and the integrity and autonomy of our bodies. I believe that this includes our weight.

Phat Poetry

I just received in the mail my very first publishing contract. I am so happy!

I opened the envelope and held in my hands a real contract – with my name on it – and now my signature. The contract is for the first ever book of poetry devoted entirely to the experience of being fat as written by The Fat Poets Society©, of which I am a founding member. I met this wonderful group of women through a poetry writing workshop at the NAAFA convention in Boston 2006 and we have been writing fat positive poetry together ever since. I generally write prose fiction and so I have only contributed two poems to this collection, but my interest in writing poetry is growing and I hope to have more pieces to contribute for our next volume. We still have cover art to choose and other various details regarding the appearance of the book so it’s not ready to be seen in bookstores yet but as soon as I know more about publication dates I will pass the information along to you.

In addition to having my poetry published, last week I was fortunate to be invited to participate in an inspiring event called Phat Poetry. Organized by Aja Stubbs of Belle-Noir online zine, the day was an absolutely incredible self-esteem raising experience. I left feeling like I truly live in the best of all possible worlds because I share the planet with these amazing women.

The highlight of the day featured strong beautiful women reading their own works. I promised each of them that I would give my readers more information about the work that each is doing to spread the word about size acceptance and put an end to size discrimination and body shame in our culture. Everyone in their own unique way was eloquent, funny, shocking, and totally bad ass. You can find the list of performers and links to their websites here

Erica Watson, a local NYC comedienne who can also be seen in some upcoming movies was the overall host/MC and she did a wonderful job! Performers included Raqui of Large In Charge online zine; Spanish Superfly Lynx; Renee Jennings of radio show Sarcasm with no Chaser ; La’Shawnda Jones of Jazzy Media who is committed to creating healthy self-esteem for all women and who has published two books of her poetry, poet Brenda’s Child and Lara Frater who wrote Fat Chicks Rule! How to Survive in a Thincentric World.

I have to admit that at the very opportunity to meet an author whom I greatly admire I pretty much turned into a babbling fool in the presence of Lara Frater. Lara, I swear I am capable of speaking in complete sentences and if my drool left a mark on your shirt I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.

My dear friend Kira Nerusskaya, who is filming a documentary about the BBW World, was also there with her camera to document this historic event.

Whether you consider yourself a BBW/BHM, fat activist, or someone who wants to feel good about your body at any shape or weight while still being interested in dieting, this event and others like it are important because they place emphasis on the inherent rights of all human beings for dignity and fair treatment regardless of the size of our body.

As reported in the recent article in Red Eye magazine:

However, it’s possible to be fat and healthy, according to Huang and Sarah Catanese, instructor of psychiatry and behavior sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“You can be overweight and healthy as long as you’re exercising, eating a nutritious diet,” Catanese said.

A negative body image, on which some weight-loss programs try to capitalize, can be a barrier to engaging in healthy behavior, she said. “I think people who are more comfortable in their own skin are more likely to exercise, to take care of their bodies,” Catanese said.