What a great post to start my Friday morning.

Also, the Glamour cover is horrifying. Just. Ick.

Thanks, Jess! I realized what I didn't say in that post is what we do: Big Moves is the only producing, training, and service organization in the world dedicated to getting more people of all sizes into the dance studio and up on stage. We perform revue-style shows (our Spring show, Big Top, will have a circus theme) as well as full-on theatrical musicals (we just toured Lard: Like Grease But Thicker in Boston and NYC). All of our work is about undoing the size-tyranny of the entertainment industry, for performers and audiences alike.

The funds we raise with this calendar will help us to tour our 2008 productions up and down the East Coast, to the Montreal Fringe Festival, Boston, NYC, Philadelphia and more.

Wicked! I had a chance to see a Big Moves performance and participate in a class during the NOLOSE 2005 Conference in Newark, NJ. Since y'all are coming to Philly in '08...pleeze say that you're trying to do our Fringe Festival too (I'm a Volunteer)!!! Thanx.

Re: America, I emailed Glamour to complain and here is their response:

Dear Holly,

Thanks so much for your letter about our October cover photo of America Ferrera. Let me assure you, we did not digitally slim her; as she mentions in the interview, she wears a size 6/8. actually appeared at our shoot in June.

That said, we deeply value your feedback, and your letter has been read by our Editor-In-Chief and other senior staffers. Be sure to take a look inside at the photos of America and let us know what you think.
Sincerely,
Emilia Benton
Reader Services Intern

this calendar is fuckin awesome! love the cupcakes big and the lady on the chaise! hot!

I'm buying one.

mizholly

so the barbie arms are natural then?
funniest thing i read all morning.

You've got to be kidding me. She's trying to claim that the picture wasn't altered? That's fucking audacious.

I love the calendar. Love.

I'm so incredibly sick of being judged by the way I look. I want to scream.

Aw, DiosaNegra, we'll be there in the Spring with Big Top (tentatively April 25/26), but not at the Fringe. I wish we could do the Philly Fringe, too! Unfortunately, we'd all lose our day jobs if we had to take enough time off to do two fringes in one year. Maybe if we sell enough calendars and tickets then someday we can quit our day jobs and just roam the Fringe circuit? A curvy girl can dream...

Those pictures are gorgeous.

The 'plus size model' on the current cycle of America's Next Top Model appears to be a size 8. Which is insane. It's so good to see beautiful happy people in the midst of all this insanity. Thank you.

I agree with all the comments listed here, but for me, it would have also been nice to see some women of color as well. Unless I missed something and someone can point out my error.

June and August (Janie & Karen) are both women of color -- the resolution leaves them a little washed out.

While it's awesome to see women of larger sizes be confident about themselves and their bodies... and while the "no fatties" assholes need all the abuse that we can heap on them....

I detect just a *little* bullshit in all this. I'm sorry. I know this will attract angry responses. But I just do.

Did obesity magically not become a major health problem when I wasn't looking? Did diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, PCOD suddenly cease to exist?

Is Jessica Valenti herself thin out of no effort on her part at all? Do you really think she doesn't have a gym membership? If she were chubby, would she be invited to the Colbert report?

And do you really think she picks her men without regard to their looks... or their weights?

Sorry, but you know deep down what I'm talking about with regards of the importance of looks. Even though we all wish it weren't true. Let the abuse commence.

You're right, ForbiddenComma. I'm totally lazy, not like Jessica. You can tell it by how I look.

In fact, instead of the many many commitments that Jessica has, I spend all of my day lying around on my couch, eating bonbons and reading on the internet. That's why I'm fat. Cuz I'm lazy and don't put it any effort. .

I'm just waiting for the coroner to get here and declare me dead of fat.

Heaven knows you can tell how much people work out just by their waist size! That bit where my brother never works out and lives entirely off pasta sauce and yet is pretty slender is totally indicative of his secret workout, the one he hides from the rest of us, and not anything to do with his luck in the genetics lotto.

Still waiting for the coroner to come get me. Damn, it's taking me a long time to die of this fat.

Hey forbiddencomma, check out junkfood science. Health can be seen in things like blood pressure and cholesterol levels, not in size. Thin does not equal health for all people. I was really tiny for three years, after severe food poisoning damaged my body. I was told that I "looked great" and everybody wanted my secret. It was so strange to hear this when I felt so awful. The guy I had started seeing was trying to find a polite way of asking if I was terminally ill! Real beauty is health and vitality.

Yes, ForbiddenComma, we know deep down what you mean about looks. Physical attraction is important. Which is why those of us in monogamous relationships (that's at least 7 of the calendar models, at quick count) have to deal with jealousy from our partners when we perform -- we're constantly getting hit on by fans. Because we're talented and confident and hot, and lots of people are attracted to us.

I'm not going to even deal with the "health concern" bullshit you're throwing, because I know other commenters here will. But you really need to check your assumptions about attractiveness at the door. Just because you don't find us hot doesn't mean no one does. Far from it. Almost to a woman, the models in that calendar have healthy, active sex lives with partners both ample and trim, who we're hot for and who are genuinely hot for them. So thanks for your "concern," but, well, maybe you should eat it.

Oh, OK, maybe I will say one thing about "health:" Big Moves performers work our asses off to always take our performances to the next level. For many of the dancers, that means 2-3 hour dance rehearsals several times/week. Plus the ones they're teaching (I know, fat women teaching dance? What is this world coming to?)

You think you can tell who's who by looking at our relative size? Well, I'm one of the smallest in the troupe, and I'm the house poet. Not a lot of dance rehearsal for me (except when they rope me into doing a routine with them!). Some of the biggest women in the calendar are our baddest, most hard working dancers.

Most of the studies relating obesity to health were done on men. More current research shows that "excess" pounds (excess of what?) do not have near the impact on health in women. When comparing a man and a woman who are the same percentage above their "ideal" weights, the woman will be far less likely to suffer health-wise because of her weight than the man (though the man will be far less likely to suffer socially). Other research demonstrates that it is way better to be overweight but exercise and eat healthfully than to be of "normal" weight eating junk food and sitting on the couch.

Even if we accept that height-weight charts (most of which are based on dubious science and don't take frame size, activity level, or ethnicity into account) depict a healthy weight, the higher range of healthy is much heavier than the vast majority of women we see on television and in movies. We are silently conditioned to see very thin, even underweight women as normal. The celebrities who are celebrated for their curviness are usually of healthy weight--they just weigh a good bit more than the average celebrity. So when we see a woman who is at the upper range of a healthy weight, we view her as enormous when she really isn't.

Did obesity magically not become a major health problem when I wasn't looking? Did diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, PCOD suddenly cease to exist?

I can't describe how relieved I am to see some sense spoken re: this subject.

The celebrities who are celebrated for their curviness are usually of healthy weight--they just weigh a good bit more than the average celebrity. So when we see a woman who is at the upper range of a healthy weight, we view her as enormous when she really isn't.

Yes. Absolutely. Bang-on. Quite right. No argument. The best pop-culture ie: I can think of is the scene in The Devil Wears Prada when Anne Hathaway tells Stanley Tucchi that she's a size 6 & he replies "Which is the new size 14".

It's news to no one that entertaining & advertising push insanely impoissible standards down everybody's throats & they both need a stake driven through their hearts posthaste, but this glorification of obesity as a counter to the tsunami of stick-thin female imagery is merely exhanging one brand of lunacy for another.

Smartpatrol, what's lunacy is that you didn't read a thing anyone here said except the one person who agreed with you. Go read this, and then come tell me all about how women who are actually size 14 or larger performing onstage and being publicly confident about their own beauty = the "glorification of obesity."

What should we all do? Not leave our houses until we're thin (or dead), lest someone accidentally take our picture of find us entertaining or attractive or something? Nice.

I understand not being attracted to people based on the way we look. We are all attracted or not attracted to people for all kinds of reasons. What I can't understand is the refusal of some people to leave the people they don't find attractive alone.

I'm generally attracted to medium-sized nerd boys with glasses and sweaters. I find muscular, buff fitness guys unattractive. In fact, I find them seriously unattractive and can't imagine a circumstance in which I would want to date one. This is my personal opinion. But I don't object to billboards with buffed out dudes on my morning commute. I don't find reasons to approach them to let them know how unattractive I find them. If there are happy buff dudes in the media I don't object. I don't look for research about the health concerns for people who work out too much or rely on aids to get more muscular. Because it isn't my business.

Buff dudes can have their lives and their choices and be as happy as they like and it is no skin off my nose. You know?

Now why can't the same consideration be extended to overweight/fat/choose whatever term you like people? Are there health concerns related to weight? Some, but they aren't relevant to every person you find fat. If you aren't overweight it's not your damned concern.

Don't find fat attractive? That's your right. Loads of other people do. Move along. Quietly, please.

I'm taking a Big Moves Jazz class at the end of this month. I'm really excited. I took Jazz when I was little, and I had a really great teacher who NEVER mentioned size (she was an ample figured lady herself) but it was at a snobbish studio that actually posted a sign in the lobby saying only thin girls were allowed to try out for the Nutcracker.

No wonder I have low self esteem.

Clearing up: my low self esteem being from the "thin only" sign at the studio, NOT the awesome ample-figured Jazz teacher.

That may have been obvious, but I'm really anal about anything I write being crystal clear.

And re: the fatbasher up there, do a little research. Yeah, there are health consequences related to weight, but that does NOT mean that every fat person you see is a lazy binge eater rife with cholesterol problems and diabetes. Lifestyle has a bazillion times more to do with health than size. It's misconceptions like that that allow sizeism to be rampant in our society.

Oh, and re: Jessica's bod. I'm sure she takes care of herself, but I am going to guess she has a little help from her gene pool. And it's not up to me or you or anyone to make comments and assumptions about her body and how it relates to her lifestyle. Same goes for my body and my lifestyle, and everyone else's.

She could be a lazy-ass that sits on the couch all day with a ferret's metabolism and I could be a marathon runner with a slow one, but you don't know that and thus have no business making assumptions.

I have seen these Big Moves folks perform and they RULE! If you get a chance, do go check them out.

But shit howdy, in every thread featuring anyone who is not a size 6, does there HAVE to be healthist concerntrolling? Like:

Did obesity magically not become a major health problem when I wasn't looking? Did diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, PCOD suddenly cease to exist?

PCOD? You mean PCOS? Polycystic ovarian syndrome? The thing I have, which started to show symptoms when I was 8 years old, way before I was ever "obese"? You mean the thing that actually made me gain weight, rather than the other way around? You know, a sizable percentage of the women who have this disorder are also Jewish. I suppose you're also going to tell me that if I become a fundie Christian it will all go away?

Oh, and this?

I understand not being attracted to people based on the way we look. We are all attracted or not attracted to people for all kinds of reasons. What I can't understand is the refusal of some people to leave the people they don't find attractive alone.

**clap clap whistle**

what's lunacy is that you didn't read a thing anyone here said

I certainly did, & I read the page you've linked to & I'm perfectly aware when I'm being sold a bag of smoke on a given subject, particularly when the rhetoric of fat acceptance/obesity enablement reads like it's cribbing it's talking points from the Tobacco Industry's Defence Playbook.

Obesity is neither a virtue nor something to be admired: it is a serious condition of ill health that gets worse the longer it goes ignored & is directly linked to a host of others. Having been there myself & beaten it & left it behind for several years now I can say that the means of dealing with it are readily available. Much like Global Warming.

I used the TDWP quote to emphasize Jessica F.'s bullseye that perceptions & priorities re: body image have become so deeply & frustratingly skewed that perfectly healthy women can be dismissed as fat while borderline anorexics are venerated as shining examples of the Cult of the Body Beautiful. But that was obvious.

I come to Feministing to take a bath in critical thinking, not to run from it: the hormone/genetics defence has a place reserved for it in the dustbin, right next to the BMI index.

$0.02 ends. Done with the subject. Moving along now.

Thank the lord I'm not the only one thinking this way SP. It's almost exactly like cigarette and global warming arguments. Every time I see these things like "we can't really draw a line for obesity" or "being overweight can have health benefits" or "I'm not meant to be anything less than overweight" it rings of the same types of arguments. Are there exceptions? Yes. However, and the data supports me here, the majority of people who are overweight by 20 pounds or more suffer from adverse effects.

I do believe bodily pride is a good thing, but to a fault. Taking pride in your body is more than just being comfortable in the skin you're in, it's taking care of that body. So yes, I'm glad these women are comfortable with their bodies, because it's definitely better than starving yourself thin. That said, I don't think we need to take things to either extreme. So yes, no "size zero ideal", but by the same token we don't need the idea that being obese is something to take pride in. Isn't this a women's health issue too?

1. These women are healthy. They are engaged in a demanding and healthy lifestyle. They are taking care of their bodies. They are healthy.

2. From what I can see, the majority of women in the calendar are not obese.

3. Just saying, "The data supports me here" does not make it true.

4. How is it any of your business?

5. Dave, you can keep your concerns about women's health issues to yourself, OK? Worry about your own health and mind your own business. I won't come into your house all concerned about whether you've had a rectal exam and you can allow me and every other person to take care of themselves as well. Get it? Adults. We're adults.

Sure, sgzax, I just hope you'll hold your tongue during another anorexia post here. Because if it's an adult's body, it's their choice, so let's let everyone do what they want. This is apparently a judgment-free zone.

And you're going to have a hard time telling me how Ms. June is healthy.

I was simply agreeing with a previous poster about how the arguments that being overweight and/or obese is not that bad were similar to those from the tobacco lobby back in the day. SP captured my ideas and put them down very well.

And if my family had a history of prostate cancer I'd hope you would be concerned.

Actually I'm not concerned about your family's history of prostate cancer because it is none of my business. You get to be concerned about your own health and I get to be concerned about mine.

I'd like you to find a post where I have anything to say about anorexia.

It isn't your business whether Ms. June is healthy or not. If you don't find her attractive you should keep it to yourself and move along. She is an adult. She is capable of making her own decisions about her lifestyle and her health.

What part of "mind your own business" is so fucking difficult to understand?

I would like to also point out that all obesity worries and arguments also apply to all the buff, muscular men sgzax describes. As the heart has no way of distinguishing between fat and muscle, and muscle weighs three times what fat does, ofthen these superfit bodybuilder types have all the health problems of overweight people - or does Arnold Schwarzenegger not have a pig heart. But I never hear of people decrying body building and banning weight lifting in gyms. These are the real health blight.

OK. Soooo done with the anorexia analogy. We live in a culture that valorizes and rewards thin, thin bodies to a frightening and relentless degree. When we, as feminists, call attention to the dangers of anorexia, we're trying to overcome the overwhelming social and institutional pressures women face every day to succumb to this particular illness.

Obesity, from a socioinstitutional point of view, is the exact opposite case. Unlike the anorexic, who is relenteless rewarded by society, an obese person is mocked and ostracized and reminded every single day by the corporate media and everyone else that they are, at best, a punchline to be laughed at, and, at worst, disgusting, lazy, terrifying, pathetic and/or not worthy of love. Not to mention dangerously unhealthy, soooooooo much more so than any "thin" person could be!!!

I'm flattered that you think my work is sooooo powerful that it's going to suddenly make thin people want to do whatever it takes until their bodies attain that "obese ideal." But let's get real. It's not. Not even for one person. And it's not going to encourage obese people to ignore whatever health concerns they may have. Believe me when I say, THEY KNOW ALREADY, OK? Anyone who's above a size 8 gets reminded every day about their "health concerns," whether science backs it up or not, so I promise you that obese people know EVEN MORE. This calendar's not going to erase that. They're fat. They're not stupid or amnesiacs.

What this calendar MAY do, my only modest hope for it, is it that it may help women feel slightly more beautiful and confident and self-accepting and powerful at whatever size they're at today. This might even, shockingly, encourage women to take better care of their bodies, because -- and I know this may be a hard concept to grasp -- self-love is a better long-term motivator than shame and fear.

Thank You Jaclyn.

I get so tired of any conversation about simply not HATING YOURSELF b/c of your weight is some how enabling and just so persuasive that everyone will leave Jenny Craig for Lane Bryant.

Puhlease

Wow, this is the second thread that's started as fat-positive and ended up on the defense against fat-bashing. I'm naturally thin, and you know what I'm doing when I read about this? SHUTTING THE HELL UP. I've never had an excess weight problem (quite the opposite), so it's not my place to judge whether or not people who are bigger are doing enough to be healthy. I don't have to do jack-shit to stay thin, so it'd be pretty incongruous for me to decide that other people are lazy based on body type. Do I think people should take care of themselves? Absolutely. The point of these threads aren't that it's praiseworthy to ignore one's health- the point is that people can be healthy at all weights, and YOU CAN'T TELL BY LOOKING.

I didn't realize people were so altruistic and concerned about my health.

I guess I've been living under a rock, I honestly had no idea that normal, every day strangers, people would look at me and think "she's unhealthy"

I assumed no one would care.

Between this thread and the other one, I'm feeling pretty insecure at the moment.

FC: Is Jessica Valenti herself thin out of no effort on her part at all? Do you really think she doesn't have a gym membership?

Um, actually I don't work out. I sit in front of my computer all day and I eat junk food. I'm am in no way the picture of health. Shit, I can't even walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. I'm not exactly proud to admit this stuff, but if it helps disprove this gross ass comment, I will. Weight is not an indication of health, it's just not.

If she were chubby, would she be invited to the Colbert report?

You're right, they actually made me get on a scale before I was allowed on set. (rolls eyes)

This post is meant to celebrate women and their bodies. If you're not here to do that, then fuck off.

A-hah-hah-HAAA!

I see the concerned individuals in this thread have spotted our world-wide agenda, Jaclyn: to glorify fat so that everyone in the WORLD will want to be it! So they can, oh, what is it... oh, yeah, cram burgers and fries and doughnuts in their faces and revel in their fatness like I do!

They've done studies to see if thin people can gain weight AND MAINTAIN that weight gain long-term. Guess what? Can't be done in that direction, either, except by a few genetically rare people. Aw, nuts. I guess that means that obsessively keeping track of your caloric intake and expenditure with an eye on artificially achieving AND MAINTAINING weight gain OR LOSS is not something that the vast majority of people should waste their time, money, and psyches on.

All those things that concern trolls always mention--diabetes, PCOS, heart disease, creaky knee joints--all of them can be found in individuals that aren't fat. ALL of those conditions can be improved or eliminated by including more exercise in one's life, even if no weight is lost. And NONE of those conditions have been proven to respond positively to either self-generated or other-generated loathing.

To paraphrase my own goddamn script for Lard ("like grease, but thicker"):

I wear the clothes I like, eat what I want, dance as much as I can, and to hell with the rest.

That's what Big Moves encourages its performers and students and audiences to do, through Health At Every Size, and eating on demand, and finding movement activities that are pleasurable and therefore easy to keep doing. It's radical self-love in motion.

I'm Ms. September, by the way. That globe in the background is not an accident. And that knowing look I'm giving out over my glasses? That's because, in my own way, I'm helping to kick over the pillars of the body-hate paradigm. And when they finally fall, some people aren't going to know what hit them.

Yep. I'm looking forward to that day.

I have avoided the two threads about body acceptance because, honestly, the concern trolling makes me sick.
What I want to say is too long to fit into a comment, so I've written a post on my blog; Fear of Fatties!.
I second the sentiment, I had no clue that so many people were concerned about my health. Or do they just feel better lecturing us ignant fatties about our personal failings?
Anyone else that wants to give some unsolicited medical adivce can suck my left one. My health issues are between me and my doctors. Just because you can see my health problem, doesn't mean you have a right to judge, give advice, or any more self congratulatory wankitude.

Ummm, I think they are beautiful without all the caveats. Not just because they are strong, driven, creative and all of that, but just because they are, well, Beautiful.

I DON"T think I misunderstand the term!

Aw, thanks Randall! I'll confess that I think so too, but some people need help seeing it, which is where the explanations & caveats come in. Honestly, the germ of the idea for this calendar came because for years we'd be sitting around looking at post-show photos of ourselves saying, wow. We look that good? We should be in a calendar...

ForbiddenComma:

I detect just a *little* bullshit in all this. I'm sorry. I know this will attract angry responses. But I just do.

Isn’t this almost the exact same thing ragingfem said that derailed the previous thread?

Thanks so much for braving our anger to let us know how much you care about our health and our looks. We appreciate it. Really we do. It’s just the spur we need to make us get off our lazy asses, put the bon-bons away and lose that last stubborn 100lbs.

Why is it so offensive to you that the women in the calendar are not the weight you think they should be? Why the hell is it any of your business what weight any of us (fat or thin) are?

Smartpatrol�

I'm perfectly aware when I'm being sold a bag of smoke on a given subject, particularly when the rhetoric of fat acceptance/obesity enablement reads like it's cribbing it's talking points from the Tobacco Industry's Defence Playbook.

DaveNJ17:

It's almost exactly like cigarette and global warming arguments.

Wow! You are right. It IS almost like the Tobacco Industry’s desperate flailing to keep business booming – and smokers smoking - in the face of evidence against it.

Except in this case it’s the Weight Loss Industry’s desperate flailings to keep business booming - and (the same) dieters dieting - in the face of evidence against it. (e.g. that permanent weight loss is impossible for the vast majority of people, that the effects of “obesity� are largely overstated, that the benefits of weight loss (as opposed to exercise) are unproven and over-stated, and that “obesity� may actually be beneficial to health in certain circumstances.)

Funny how similar it is, really.

I know I'm late to the party here, but I just wanted to throw in a personal bit that I'm sure the Big Moves ladies can appreciate.

I sometimes get involved with the community theater where I live (they usually do musicals and the like, although they did The King and I a couple of years ago)--it's basically open to any random person who wants to come be on stage for a couple minutes or so. It's a lot of fun, and the director is a total hoot. I worked for her for a while, she's badass.

One of my favorite people amongst that little crowd of regulars that showed up every summer is a woman named Loretta. She's about five-two, probably bigger around than she is tall, and she is the best amateur actress I've ever seen. She played Birdie's agent's mother in Bye Bye, Birdie and stole scene after scene, not to mention climbed into a garbage can in the middle of a rehearsal (her line was something about being thrown out with the trash). Ardith (the director) loved it so much she included it in the final performance. She played Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes and I just about fell out of my seat she was so good at it. Her size is a non-issue, partly because Ardith is badass, like I said, but also because this fat lady has so much fucking presence she could knock over a roomful of people just by laughing.

She's really hilarious, and she's such a sweet woman. I love her to death.

Oh, and concern trolls are concerned, yadda yadda.