Size Acceptance 101
The Big Folks FAQ's from the Usenet groups soc.support.fat-acceptance and alt.support.big-folks include links to many useful online resources--listservs for big folks and admirers, health resources, organizations, publications, possibly the most extensive list of sources for large-size clothing on the Web, and much more.
Big Fat Facts is a site brought to you by the folks who created Big Fat Blog. The idea is to get information out there that directly combats "conventional wisdom" on fat, diets, weight loss, and health.
In his book Brain Droppings, comedian George Carlin has a good explanation of why he prefers to use the word "fat."
A Fat Rant by Joy Nash is a fabulous video manifesto by a smart, gorgeous, articulate fat woman who gets it--and thanks to YouTube, it's become a hit!
Sizing Up Weight-Based Discrimination is a good article on the realities of anti-fat discrimination and bias, from the excellent Teaching Tolerance magazine, published by Tolerance.org.
Fatlash is a pretty good article (especially for a mainstream media source like Salon.com) on the size acceptance movement.
And Slate.com dares to ask, "What if counting calories makes you fatter in the long run?"
In January 1998, the New England Journal of Medicine printed a landmark editorial on "Losing Weight--An Ill-Fated New Year's Resolution."
The National Institutes of Health's Technology Assessment Conference Statement on Methods for Voluntary Weight Loss and Control likewise takes a mostly-realistic look at currently-available weight-loss methods. Even with their clear anti-fat bias, they can't find much good to say about the long-term effectiveness of any of them, and they actually question the safety of some.
In Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside, Gina Kolata reviews research that suggests why it's so difficult for most fat people to lose substantial amounts of weight, and keep it off. This New York Times article is an excerpt from Kolata's book Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting.
After all that, do you still wonder why the fat = death, get-thin-at-any-cost mania goes unchecked? Because there's a whole lot of money being made promoting it! Sponsoring the Obesity Crisis is an article from Australia's Social Issues Research Center looking at looking at some of the financial interests behind the hype.
The Seattle Times recently did a series of articles called "Suddenly Sick: The Hidden Big Business Behind Your Doctor's Diagnosis" describing what can go wrong when drug industry influences what constitutes disease, who has it, and how it should be treated. This installment, "Rush Toward New Weight-Loss Drugs Tramples Patients' Health" tells "how it became acceptable for doctors to risk killing or injuring people on the premise that it would save them from illnesses they might never get."
ScientificAmerican.com also weighs in with a 2005 article on Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic?
A great way to connect to the size acceptance community in all its facets is through online mailing lists. Here is a somewhat-out-of-date but still useful list of some of the long-established fat acceptance lists. Since Yahoo Groups arbitrarily decided that "BBW" was a code word for adult content and porn, they've classified any group using the term as "adult" and hidden it from their search engine. This list of Yahoo BBW Groups can help you find some of these hidden communities (of course, a lot of them are sexually-oriented groups, so if you're easily scandalized, be forewarned).
Okay--just what is wrong with fat and happy?
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