First something shameless, but it’s a good deal so I had to share! Red Bubble are currently running a 20% off promotion on canvas and framed prints. If you like my work you can take a look here and see if there’s anything you’d like to decorate your house with, but if you don’t see anything you like I highly recommend browsing the entire site. The code is: ExtraLove16783601
How NOT to advertise your bakery
If you’re going to use fat people as a mascot for your business, it’s best not to treat them like crap by dismissing their concern. Actually, just don’t uphold the characterisation of fat people as willing to put any food product in their mouths at a moment’s notice… because fat people know how to use the internet!
Newsflash: hate is not helpful
To remedy the sting of that first link, here’s a link to Elizabeth’s entry on why fat hatred is actually more harmful than it can ever be helpful. Pointing out someone’s fatness or correlating their physical appearance with health is damaging and none of your business.
Weight loss of 15% or more from maximum body weight is associated with increased risk of death from all causes among overweight men and among women regardless of maximum BMI.
– Study finds that weight loss increases the chance of death, via Fat Lot of Good. Bri is also fundraising to get to the Fat Studies conference in Sydney – if you can help out it means one of Australia’s most fabulous and vocal fat activists gets to present her paper!
Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Breaking the Male Gaze: A Close Reading of “Alejandro”
Lesley has written the best ever recap of Lady Gaga’s Alejandro video clip. Just go read it.
Love Letters and Cultural Appropriation: Gala Darling
Iris Hodgson has written a timely and thoughtful guest post for Julia of a l’allure garçonnière about Gala Darling and cultural appropriation. GD has since removed the “feather headdresses” sign off but has not actually faced up to any of the call outs on her blog, often deleting them rather than addressing these valid concerns! As a role model to thousands, this is pretty poor form.
On Reverse Cultural Appropriation
Still on cultural appropriation, shakepaper writes about colonialism and how reverse cultural appropriation (or indeed reverse racism) is a pile of defensive bollocks.
A Dose Of Reality: My Exclusive Interview With Biggest Loser Finalist, Kai Hibbard (Part 1 of 3)
Golda Poretsky interviews finalist Kai Hibbard from the US Biggest Loser series and some very telling (and ugly) things about our weight obsessed culture are made quite apparent. It tells of the distress many fat individuals feel, so much so that they are willing to put themselves in a situation where their health and well-being are jeopardised, supposedly in the very name of health! Golda also posted a reflection on the first part of this interview with Hibbard, and I highly recommend reading it too.
Thanks for posting those links about cultural appropriation. Whenever I see 18-year-old white women wearing miniskirts and moccasins I want to scream/barf.
Oh! I didn't even know you had a store. I've been looking for some fatties to hang on my wall! Now I just have to wait for payday…
hey, i just stumbled across your blog – great link selection, particularly the gaga analysis (and i'd already read la garconnaire's post – so great) – thank you.
Hi. I thought we should note something about that Int. J. Obesity paper:
'Weight loss of 15% or more from maximum body weight is associated with increased risk of death from all causes among overweight men and among women regardless of maximum BMI.'
The study identified the weight-loss as an association with an increased risk of death, not necessarily a cause. Limitations also need to be acknowledged, such as the fact that the study was in people over the age of 50, it was not known whether the weight that was lost by the study participants was intentional or unintentional, how it was lost, nor whether is was due to loss of adipose or lean muscle mass.
Interesting study, but we should be critical of research findings. There are many studies that contradict each other, which is why results need independent confirmation.