Saturday afternoon: another Netflix marathon, full relaxation mode… Until the TV screen is taken over by a pile of steaming, fluffy French toast, seductively dripping with sticky, golden maple syrup. “Yum,” I think. All of a sudden, the breakfast of dreams is destroyed as a towering box of Special K lands smack on top of… Continue Reading →
The un-American weight-loss story
Once upon a time, there was a Milwaukee photographer named Julia Kozerski. At 25, she was classified as morbidly obese. She made healthy lifestyle changes and lost 160 pounds. And lived happily ever after as a weight loss success in her svelter shape, right? Wrong. Julia Kozerski began documenting her weight-loss journey in one of… Continue Reading →
Six Weeks to OMG You’re Totally Insane
As a New York City commuter, I am privy to a whole host of crappy advertisements that plaster the subways and buses of our public transportation system. Inevitably, this includes ads that try to entice me to buy all manner of junk food, watch a ton of terrible television, and buy the latest pop-health book…. Continue Reading →
Fat shaming: The judgment’s in the jargon
Fat-shaming, like sexism, takes many different forms. Rarely do we hear blatant declarations that “fat people are ugly/lazy/etc.” With the dialogue of “health” currently trending in pop culture, it becomes easier for advertisers, writers, and producers to integrate the language of fat shaming into their finished products under the guise of appropriate diet and fitness…. Continue Reading →
Glamour poll finds thin women stereotyped as mean, heavy women as lazy
Glamour magazine conducted an exclusive survey in which they asked more than 1,800 women, ages 18 to 40, to imagine an “overweight” woman and a “thin” woman. They were told to imagine that they know nothing about either of the women, and to choose from pairs of words to describe them (such as ambitious or… Continue Reading →
Removing Disney fat-shaming exhibit doesn’t change the message
Recently, Disney jumped on the latest trend, fat shaming, and opened an exhibit at Epcot called Habit Heroes. The interactive game featured two “heroes,” the buff Will Power and Callie Stenics. Cute names, huh? Unfortunately, the cuteness stops there. Will and Callie’s virtue and worth are based entirely on their able-bodied physicality, and the villains… Continue Reading →
Georgia’s Strong4Life campaign relies heavily on fat-shaming
There is no denying childhood obesity is a growing concern. The CDC reports that one-third of American children and adolescents are overweight or obese. The health ramifications of an unhealthy lifestyle, especially one that begins in childhood, are severe. Seventy percent of obese minors had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and obese children and… Continue Reading →
Ring in the new year without body shame
The New Year is upon us, and with it comes the pervasive, and often heavily marketed, promise of a better tomorrow. About 40% of American adults make at least one New Year’s resolution. Goals range from drinking less to reading more books, but unsurprisingly, in our body-conscious culture (in which rates of both eating disorders… Continue Reading →
Dear Glamour, loving your body is never dangerous
In a recent article in Glamour, body image activist Jess Weiner describes a health scare that made her re-evaluate her relationship with her body. At 250 pounds, with high cholesterol and low blood sugar, her doctor informed her she was pre-diabetic. Weiner made some lifestyle changes, dropped 25 pounds, and found herself with a clean… Continue Reading →