BBW
Writing About Obesity
Update: Again, About.com did not pick me. Another declination (that should be a word) from About.com. I’d be discouraged except every writer is supposed to have rejections and when you write for your own sites you lack that sense of rejection. So I have to rely on these random applications to About.com for my rejection slips. So… thank you About.com.
I applied for the Obesity topic at About.com today. I spent most of the day getting distracted, writing about why I want to write about Obesity for About.com, deciding which links to send them and adjusting/ adapting my web resume to send. On the resume I just took out some extras.
This is what I sent about why I want to write:
I am a fat woman, have been large sized for most of my life. I would like to give other large women the chance to live (not taking a back seat in their own life) as they are, yet be aware of health risks. To find their way through the current trend to accept fat and the other side saying accepting being fat is a bad thing. I see a middle ground.
It is ok to like yourself and live as yourself, as you currently are. But, we need to think of our health and try to improve. Not just our weight but our lives in every way. The slogan on my blog is “Life keeps happening even when you don’t look like you fit in”. This is exactly how I feel as a large woman having my own life with good days, bad days and every day trying to be myself.
Having said all that, I do read and keep track of current trends, facts and social networking. I’m really interested in the paleo diet right now. I routinely read other blogs about BBW fashion, large women and campaigns about body image. I read about health issues and experience a few personally. I network with other large women through my content curation, BBW Life, on Scoop.it.
I am not a medical professional but my life has been full of all the experiences and challenges of being a fat woman. I’ve tried diets, fitness plans and I have lost some weight but put it back on again. Like most large people I know how to get fit but I have all the trials and errors along the way which have kept me the size I am. Over all, I am ok with me, lumps, bumps and all.
I don’t think a topic about obesity should focus on diet, exercise or weight loss. Health is more important than actual size. Body image is more important than appearances. I’d like to showcase plump, chubby, fat, obese women, helping but not limiting them.
Of course, now that I’ve sent it in, the first thing I notice is a typo I missed.
Big Blogging Women – BBW
I seem to have a need to begin new projects. I don’t always have the energy or social personality to take them as far as I would like to see them go. What I do have is endless ideas and some of them really are good. Even if it is just me saying so.
I’d like to start a directory for BBW, large sized women with blogs. Why? Well, because I like to read them myself and it would be nice to give each of them a place to connect, find each other and inspire each other. I already have a great WordPress plugin to run the directory from. It does need a bit of a tweak but nothing difficult. So I am going to begin adding the blogs I already know about from my own looking around and my digging for BBW sites at Scoop.it . If you find this directory, you are welcome to join. You can submit your blog through the WordPress plugin and I will review it (to make sure it’s not someone spamming their way in) and then add it.
I decided not to do this. But, if someone wanders into this post and is interested in taking up the idea I would work with someone else to do it.
Large Size Women Linked to Penis Size in Men
I was searching for links about large size women for the BBW Life and Dating topic. I like to find positive, good, optimistic links. The sort of site or post I would read myself.
Anyway, during my search for links about large size women, at least 50% of the search came back with links about penis size. I find that pretty ironic.
As a BBW/ large size woman, I do face men who become angry, ranting and downright foaming at the mouth with comments about fat women. I don’t know where they get such rabid hatred for people they don’t know. It must be based on a fear of becoming fat themselves or the fact that they really do like big women but can’t admit it. (I don’t claim to understand people who attack others without provocation so I really don’t understand the hatred some people have for fat people, especially women).
But, isn’t it just too ironic that man’s greatest fear is so linked to man’s biggest negative outlook on women? I could put it into smarter words but it’s after 2:00AM. I just wanted to write this, as a note to myself, before I go to bed and forget about it all.
Adipositivity – Dude Week
Adipositivity – ( Twitter link ).
The Adipositivity Project aims to promote size acceptance, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that’s normally unseen.
The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally.
The photographs here are close details of the fat female form, without the inclusion of faces. One reason for this is to coax observers into imagining they’re looking at the fat women in their own lives, ideally then accepting them as having aesthetic appeal which, for better or worse, often translates into more complete forms of acceptance.
The women you see in these images are educators, executives, mothers, musicians, professionals, performers, artists, activists, clerks, and writers. They are perhaps even the women you’ve clucked at on the subway, rolled your eyes at in the market, or joked about with your friends.
This is what they look like with their clothes off.
Some are showing you their bodies proudly. Others timidly. And some quite reluctantly. But they all share a determination in altering commonly accepted notions of a narrow and specific beauty ideal.
Bookmark adipositivity.com and check back often, as new photographs are added regularly(ish). And please help spread the message. The Adipositivity Project: Changing attitudes about the aesthetic validity of big women, one fat fanny at a time.
I looked at a lot of photos on the site. But, I loved this one best of them all.
Mermaid or Whale
From something forwarded to me in email this morning:
Recently, in a large city in Australia, a poster featuring a young, thin and tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said, “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”
A middle-aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.
To Whom It May Concern,
Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans.) They have an active sex life, get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Bering Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.Mermaids don’t exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them, not to mention how could they have sex? Just look at them … where is IT? Therefore, they don’t have kids either. Not to mention, who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?
The choice is perfectly clear to me: I want to be a whale.
P..S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver, and a piece of chocolate with my friends.
With time, we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, ¨Good grief, look how smart I am!¨