The-F-Word.org

A big fat apology to those who have sent me emails recently. My professional email account is regularly deluged with some 700-something emails, a couple hundred of which I haven’t even read yet, so the last thing I want to do when I get home is check my three personal email accounts. If I haven’t responded to your email, it’s not because I’m ignoring you, but because I literally have a million gazillion things on my summer to-do list in the three oh-so-brief months I have off from academic tyranny. I promise to read through my personal inbox and respond like a decent human being this week. In the meantime, here’s a few quick hits I’ve been meaning to post.

Calling all area Illinois residents! Remember the awesome Lou Herout, who was featured here in an April interview? She’s the graduate student who replicated advertisements from Cosmopolitan, Elle and other popular women’s fashion magazines with “realistic” women. Herout will show off some of her work at a July 9 viewing at The House Cafe in DeKalb Ill. Here’s the details:

Location: The House Cafe
Lincoln Highway (Rt. 38), DeKalb, IL 60115 US
When: Wednesday, July 9, 7:00PM

I finally have the opportunity to show off my voluptuous women project, and I would be delighted if you would come to check it out. The work will be up for two weeks, but feel free to come to the opening night for some appetizers and a reunion before I run off to San Francisco.

We all know the classic fat girl photo shot, right? It’s usually a head-shot or shot from the chest up. Well, COFRA member CarrieP has started a new Flickr project called Love My Parts that spotlights those parts of our bodies we’re usually too ashamed to show off. Here’s Carrie:

The idea is for everyone out there to pick a part of your body that you’re not entirely familiar with or that maybe you don’t like so well and take its portrait. Be creative. Get several shots from different angles or with different lighting. Show your whole body with this one part highlighted or just show the part by itself. My hope is that in the course of this portrait-taking and evaluation we will all become more familiar with and more able to recognize the beauty in these parts of ourselves.

Click here to join the group and start posting your own photos today.

The fabulous Stacy Bias has done it again, this time with her new The Fat Experience Project. As she explains:

The Fat Experience Project is an oral, visual and written history project which seeks to be a humanizing force in body image activism. By collecting and sharing the many and varied stories of individuals of size, the Fat Experience Project seeks to engage with, educate, empower and enrich the lives of people of size, our allies and the world at large. …It is my hope that the project will be a community tool to combat prejudice/stereotype/discrimination as well as to help externalize shame
so it can discussed and dissipated. The things we keep silent about are the things that do us the most harm. Shared burden is lighter.

The project hopes to include first-person, non-fiction narratives in a variety of media formats, including text, video and mp3. Stacy will include some of the interviews she’s already collected on her two-month road trip, but most content will be reader-submitted through the website. She hopes the project may eventually be used as a resource in the academic areas of fat studies and social anthropology.

Our discussion on the new Wii Fit from Nintendo generated a lot of overall disgust across the board for the way in which the game presents the issue of BMI and weight to kids. Big Fat Blog member DebraSY took the discussion further and publicly with an editorial here in The Kansas City-Star. Concludes Debra:

The Wii Fit needs to encourage people to work with doctors and other wellness experts. Goals should be more about flexibility, endurance, muscle development, blood flow and chemistry than weight. The machine should provide its games of balance, coordination, strength and aerobics to serve those goals, not its own ignorant, inflexible weight-loss goals.

Enjoy Wii Fit at your own risk.

The National Eating Disorder Association has opened registration for its annual conference to be held Sept. 18 – 20 in Austin, Tex. Here’s an event description:

The annual NEDA Conference is the only event of its kind designed to address the needs of families, those affected by eating disorders including anorexia, bulimia or binge eating. The agenda also includes sessions for families, treatment providers and health and educational professionals. Perhaps most importantly, it’s a chance to come together to meet others, share stories and foster connections in a warm, welcoming environment.

The conference has great deals available on hotel stays at the Renaissance Austin Hotel, but the registration itself is a little pricey (standard rate is $395; one-day rate is $215). For more information on the conference or registration fees, go here.

Comments/questions on any of the above? Post ‘em below.