The-F-Word.org

COFRA has issued its very first press release in opposition of Mississippi’s HB 282, which would discriminate against fat people. If you can, send a link to your local news organization to help spread the word.

“As a plan to quell the so-called ‘obesity epidemic,’ this bill would have substantial and negative side effects on Mississippi’s economy and health,” said Paul McAleer, COFRA president. “Anyone who supports human rights and freedoms should be opposing this bill – and any subsequent bill.”

On a lighter note, the fatosphere’s Marianne Kirby has been featured in the Orlando Weekly. It seems the reporter introduced some new vocabulary – Fat Power?? – but the article is largely positive. And I think Marianne’s calendar picture looks so similar to the gorgeous fat woman featured in Brazilian yogurt ad spoof of American Beauty.

Marianne Kirby is fat. Not a bit chunky, not pleasantly plump, but fat. Or, to use a more precise term, morbidly obese. Her five-foot, four-inch frame tips the scales at 319 pounds. And she’s OK with that.

…the fat power movement itself, revolve around a central theme: “You have to make a personal resolution to be OK with who you are,” Kirby says.

And h/t to Paul, Shapely Prose got a mention in Chicago Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper’s column on the Tinley Park Lane Bryant shooting. Writes Roeper:

On Chicago writer Katie [sic] Harding’s informative, enlightening Shapely Prose Web site (“I blog about fat acceptance”), the discussion turned to the possibility that Lane Bryant wasn’t a random target.

“I know a lot of our readers have been [or are] LB employees, and many more are customers,” wrote Harding. “This hits awfully close to home.”

The consensus of opinion on the discussion thread was that the killer was not targeting Lane Bryant employees and customers specifically because it’s a store for plus-size women — but that it would even come up on a message board like that tells us just how much many larger people out there feel defined by their size.

Maybe it’s because WE define them by their size.

And be sure to set your TiVOs to record Morgan of the blog www.FatGrrl.com on The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet tomorrow. Morgan will be on to recount her experiences with binge eating disorder, an as yet officially unclassified eating disorder that is estimated to be more common than both anorexia and bulimia combined. The show films live in New York at 9 a.m. EST. Good luck, Morgan!