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“Voluptuous women needed… for student photography project (no worries, no nudity). If you’re in your 20’s, got real booty, boobs or hips, please help me out!”

So read an advertisement posted by communication graduate student Kristin ‘Lou’ Herout last fall throughout buildings on her Northern Illinois University campus.

The 23-year-old graduate student and professional photographer replicated advertisements from Cosmopolitan, Elle and other women’s fashion magazines using not industry standard size-zero models, but rather “curvy” and “realistic” women to accompany a scholarly paper on the subject. “Basically, I just want people to see what it would be like if plus-size models were represented similarly to slim models,” said Herout.

The Dekalb, Ill. native boasts her own photography company startup, K Lou Photography, and teaches courses as a teacher’s assistant at NIU on audio and production. She’s also a photographer for one of Chicago’s premiere wedding photography companies, Essence Photography and Video. I caught up with Herout as she prepares to move to San Francisco this summer to complete her master’s degree in photography at the Academy of Art University to talk about her provocative project.

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If for no other reason than the hilarious quote above, I am posting this great article on plus-size model Crystal Renn. Four years ago, Renn epitomized the size-zero super-wraith model: 98 pounds and about to starve herself even thinner. Now back to a healthy size 16, she’s on a mission - and, ironically, more sought-after than ever. Writes interviewer Judy Rumbold:

To be honest, I expected Crystal Renn to be bigger. All right then, fatter. In the mind’s eye, the term ‘plus-size model’ is liberally coated in doughnut batter, and I had her down as a gloriously buxom woman-mountain. Along with a name that sounds as if it’s jumped off the embossed-foil cover of a Danielle Steel bodice-ripper, I’m anticipating a formidably blowsy, lipsticky package.

So when the 21-year-old American walks in, I am taken aback. She’s not particularly large. With scrubbed skin, a serviceable ponytail and clothes that look like the result of an absent-minded scramble through a trucker’s overnight bag, it’s hard to recognise the glossy pout and hourglass curves that have made her the most in-demand plus-size model in the world, a favourite with Dolce & Gabbana and Jean Paul Gaultier - probably the only girl over size eight who gets fashion stories in American Vogue.

But at a healthy size 16, she’s no bigger than any other woman in the street. It’s only in the skewed world of fashion that her proportions count as ‘plus-size’. She’s philosophical about it. ‘I use the term because it’s the one everyone recognises. But plus-size is normal. It’s every girl.’

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead

So my last post on “coming out” as a fat rights activists sparked lots of “I don’t consider myself an activist because….” kind of disqualifiers. I probably ought to have been more clear on how I personally define activist and for me, it’s not always the militant devotionalist marching on Washington.

I consider activism to be any action that serves to disrupt, oppose, or defy the established social or political status quo. The most effective and successful forms activism aren’t always the big think tank mega-conglomorganizations with big budgets and a paid full-time staff who can chase legislators around Washington all day throwing big wads of incentives their way; rather, its the thousands upon thousands of small personal choices individuals make every day that have the most far-reaching impact in producing changes in attitude and heart that truly make a difference. The personal is very much political.

Don’t think you can be an activist? Here are some of the many small and non-confrontational ways you can start fighting sizeism (and this applies to eating disorders activism or fat rights activism):

• Don’t contribute financially or otherwise to the already obese diet company coffers. Don’t purchase diet products. If a diet commercial comes on television, change the channel.
• Don’t support media publications that glamorize heroin chic or bony as beautiful. Do support media publications that show a diversity of sizes and an emphasis on health, not weight loss.
• Slap a sticker reading “This Promotes Eating Disorders!” or “This Promotes Healthy Body Image” on ads and articles and mail them to magazine editors. Stickers available for $5 a sheet (20) from the Renfrew Center.
• Spend your dollars at stores, doctors, restaurants that are size-friendly. For a list of winning and offending companies, see About-Face.
• Don’t engage in fat talk - that is, if a group of people start bemoaning the size of their thighs and how “bad” they are because they indulged in cheesecake, avoid it or talk up the positives about your own body. Don’t feel pressured to laugh when someone makes a size-related joke.
• Participate in size-friendly communities, comment on blogs, and join the conversation. Or start your own blog about your life, your lifestyle, your kids, your dog. Show the world you are human, and not a statistic.
• Take Harriet Brown’s “I Love my Body” pledge and reread it often.
• Support national and international organizations like NEDA, ASDAH, or COFRA in working towards larger change.
• Raise your children to be appreciative of size diversity and work to instill good self esteem in them. Be a mentor and a good role model for young girls in your life.
• Throw out your scale. Or, if this is too drastic, make the commitment to go a day without weighing yourself, then a week, then a month.
• Vote. Support candidates who promote mental health parity in health insurance and other issues important to you.
• Let go of fear. Don’t be afraid to do things just because you may be laughed at or criticized. Dare to wear tank tops in the summer or to go jogging in the park. Order what you really want off the menu, make a splash at the community pool, go to the gym. Learn to delight in the thump of your step, the resiliency of your body, the size of your heart.

And keep in mind, sometimes the best form of activism is not in trying to change the world, but in refusing to allow the world to change you.

What are some other ways we can empower ourselves and work towards fighting sizeism?

Kudos to alternative weekly San Diego CityBeat writer Kinsee Morlan on her fair and sensitive pro-fat article. I am quoted in the article, as are Paul Campos, NAAFA spokesperson Peggy Howell and others working to end size-based discrimination. And let me just say how awesome it feels to be quoted in an article alongside the great Paul Campos.

I think Kinsee may have confused me with Kate in one line - I can’t sit still or keep quiet for 15 minutes, let alone silence the chatter in my head long enough to do meditative yoga every day and the only picture of myself on my blog doesn’t really show much of my body at all. But, both are moot points in the light of such a lovely and positive article.

The story centers around a San Diego woman, Kathy Hernandez, and her Big Beautiful Women night at a local club there. I don’t particularly care for the BBW euphemism or the fetish some attach with it (also addressed in the article), but I think it’s fabulous that this group of women have found a way and means in which they feel empowered, beautiful, and fabulous. And even if the guys there are looking for “bigger-than-average racks of lamb,” it sure beats the alternative:

“Would it be acceptable for me to go over to a guy in a wheelchair and start berating him because he’s in a wheelchair?” asks Kathy. “That wouldn’t be socially acceptable. But three guys over there walking by and going, ‘Look at that fat cow.’ Is that socially acceptable? Right now it is. If I had to worry about these three guys coming in and looking at me with disgust and saying, “Eew, would you do her?’ I’ve actually heard that. What am I supposed to say? Should I call them assholes? I’ve done that before, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t do it every time.”

Abigail Saguy, an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA, who’s written extensively on obesity and society, complements the story with some interesting context on the origins of how obesity has come to be epidemic’ized:

Saguy traced the origin of the term “obesity epidemic” to the mid-’90s, after a publication by CDC researchers noticed the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese according to the BMI. Soon after the report was released, Xavier Pi-Sunyer wrote an editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In it, he said, “If this were tuberculosis, we’d call it an epidemic.”

“So it was metaphorical at first,” Saguy explains, “but then the metaphor was dropped and people just use it.”

The piece is largely positive and I thank Kinsee for taking the time to research the issue and to understand what it is we’re saying. I particularly like these two lines:

But evolution for fat people is actually more like adaptation to a world that doesn’t understand or accept them… As things stand, fat people are still metaphorically sitting in the back of the bus.

Luckily, there are people out there like Kinsee who do understand, or at least, try to understand. I’d encourage everyone to write in to the San Diego CityBeat with letters of appreciation and praise, because you know who else will be writing in, too.

A round-up of related topics in the news:

Adolescent girls with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to develop eating disorders than girls without ADHD, a new study has found. The findings have appeared in the current issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Related news story here.

The news story doesn’t go into much detail nor does it explain why the links found by researchers exist. But I’ve written before on the intersection of eating disorders and ADD/HD.

We all know eating disorders can strike boys and girls, men and women of all ages, but now the British Dietetic Association warns of increasing numbers of middle-aged women developing eating disorders to emulate youthful looking celebrities such as Madonna and Teri Hatcher - story here.

Professor Phillipa Hay from the University of Western Sydney, said the survey of 3,000 South Australians in 1995 and again in 2005 showed the number of older people with an eating disorder had increased over the past decade. She said rising public concern about obesity might be a factor.

Julie Thomson of the Butterfly Foundation said the celebrity-driven phenomenon of the yummy mummy and the pressure to return to pre-baby weight were driving women to go on fad or restrictive diets, leaving them at high risk of an eating disorder.

And lest you need any explanation of why my eating disorders awareness blog addresses issues of fat rights, see my emphasis above.

“Rexia” has become as much of a buzzword these days as characterizing every scandal with the suffix “gate.” Now the latest to join such terms as “wannarexia” is “drunkorexia,” in which those with an eating disorder try to fill empty stomachs with excessive amounts of alcohol. The disorder, which is thought to affect primarily college-aged women, is at first somewhat ironic given the high caloric count of most alcohol drinks. But experts say it appeals to some people because consuming large amounts of alcohol on an empty stomach results in rapid intoxication and makes it easier to purge later.

And on a lighter note, B & Lu co-owner Lucie Sholl appeared on TLC’s 10 Years Younger Friday to show two makeover subjects how they can appear younger and more stylish by dressing in figure-flattering styles. The article doesn’t make clear if the show also aired on Friday or if it will air later, so regular fans of the show will have to keep us posted.

If you’re not already an avid fan, B & Lu specializes in trendy fashions for women, sizes 14 - 30. The online store is owned by St. Paul-based sisters Chris and Lucie Sholl - for more on their boutique’s beginnings, read here.

And finally, the fatosphere’s Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby of The Rotund have sold their book proposal to Penguin Books imprint Perigee Books. The book, tentatively titled Screw Inner Beauty: How to Like the Body You’ve Got, may be available as soon as spring of 2009. Congrats to both Kate and Marianne!

Last week I went to cover a story on a newly opened, locally-owned café. Walking in to the color-splashed restaurant, I was greeted by the aging proprietress with, “Are you Rachel? You are just so cute!”

Later that day while on a different story, another man told me I am “just as cute as cute can be.”

Yesterday evening I gave a presentation to a local business group on how to use the media advantageously and was told by one of the members, “You are a breath of fresh air from the rest of the media,” while another told me, again, how “cute” I was.

My response to all four compliments? “Thank you.”

Just two little words, and yet it took years for me to be able to say them when receiving a compliment.

Learning to accept compliments and positive messages about ourselves is difficult for so many of us. Instead of graciously accepting the compliment as the verbal gift it is, we hesitate to receive them or deflect or outright reject them.

“I love your shirt!”
“This old thing? I got it on the clearance rack.”

“That’s a great hairstyle on you.”
“I hate my hair; I wish I had long hair like yours.”

“You look great!”
“I need to lose xx pounds.”

“Wow, you look really pretty today.”
“You must be blind.”

Growing up as the fat kid, I was so used to being put down on a constant basis that I came to internalize the negative messages and began to believe them myself. It wasn’t until a few years after I graduated high school that I came to the startling realization that I truly believed that and acted as if my fatness rendered me a second-class citizen.

Like many people with body insecurities, my safeguard was to put myself down first before someone else could hurt me. I see this now in my sister, who also struggles with her weight. Her self-defense mechanism is to turn her fatness into a joke. “My second stomach is hungry,” she’ll quip, or she’ll ask for clothes in “fattie-size.”

Whenever people complimented me, I immediately questioned their ulterior motives. What is it this person wants from me? Surely they couldn’t really think I am smart or funny or a good writer, could they? Are they making fun of me? Are they mocking me?

Why do we find it so easy to disregard a compliment while taking every mean or critical thing said about us to heart? It’s as my favorite artist Bruce Cockburn sings, “Always ourselves we love the least.”

Cute is a compliment I receive often and one that even today is still hard to swallow. When I hear cute, I don’t attribute it to my retro-inspired glasses, my red hair or youthful appearance or the fact that I happen to be wearing green-striped bowling shoes with yellow stars on them. When I hear cute, I hear chubby cheeks, dimples and a round (fat) face. In short, when I hear cute, I hear fat. And in my head, the well-intentioned compliment instead becomes anything but a compliment.

On and on it goes, the endless ways we diminish and deflect positive comments about ourselves and our accomplishments.

One of the things I like about my husband is that he is very physically affectionate. My family is somewhat emotionally distant – we never hugged one another or expressed our feelings to one another. Early in our relationship, it felt strange to be hugged, uncomfortable even. I didn’t want to admit that I needed someone, anyone. Receiving a compliment is kind of like receiving a hug. When we allow ourselves to absorb positive messages, we might have to change how we think about ourselves.

When we receive a compliment, the appropriate response is to accept the comment for the well-intentioned gesture it truly is with a simple “Thank you.” The compliment-giver may just be right no matter what you keep telling yourself.

I was inspired by Kate’s sage repost over at Shapely Prose in honor of Valentine’s Day commercially-induced love mania to share the story of how I never met my husband because I thought I was too fat.

It was rather serendipitous the events that culminated in me meeting Brandon. I had taken a week vacation off work to spend in the library - yes, the library - doing research when I encountered a dear old friend with whom I had lost touch. Later that week, I happened across a fabulous retro dress in exactly her size while thrifting and stopped by her apartment to give it to her. There, I met her extremely fat roommate who was preparing to leave for Indianapolis to be with a man she had met online (they’re now married and have a beautiful daughter). She encouraged me to try online dating.

I had tried online dating exactly twice in the past, the first when I was a naive 18. I met an older man who, not so surprisingly, had completely misrepresented himself. The second was a few years later, when I weighed my heaviest at 300 pounds. I contacted a guy closer to my age who appeared fat in his photo, thus, I thought, improving my own chances. I sent him the classic fat girl head shot of myself and we soon began talking on the phone twice a day and chatting till the wee hours of the night. He wanted to meet and my thin friends stupidly assured me that he had gotten to know me, and would look past my weight.

We met at a Journey concert and seemed to hit it off. But then he never called or emailed the next day. Or the day after that. Or the rest of the week.

I found an online message board he frequented and discovered the scathing post to his friends he had made about this fat girl who had deceived him about her weight (he never asked) and who couldn’t even fit in her seat (”spilling out into his,” is I think he phrased it) and so on. I was stunned and mortified. I posted an equally mean-spirited reply about his manboobs and we never spoke again.

I relate this to give you some much-needed context to explain why I almost never met the man who would have the single-most positive impact on my life.

At the urging of the roommate, I signed up for the free trial at Yahoo Personals. At the time, I weighed about 170-pounds and wore a size 14. I had gained nearly fifty pounds in the past year after entering into recovery for an eating disorder in which I had whittled 175 pounds off my frame the previous year. I felt incredibly fat and I still struggled, to a lesser degree, with the disorder.

I tried to make my online profile sound as incredibly geeky and unlovable as possible to discourage, well, everyone. I included a current photo. In describing my match, I write, “Above all, he is someone who can accept me - as I am.”

Every lonely man in Cincinnati, it seemed, messaged me. I deleted most of them except for the man whose profile read “Talk geeky to me.” Perfect, right? We chatted briefly over the phone and arranged to meet for dinner at a local German place that, as it turns out, has absolutely nothing vegetarian on their menu. I should have taken that as a bad omen of the night to come.

Suffice it to say, it was an awful date. The man was a bore and seemed scarily obsessed with his ex-girlfriend. Somewhat demoralized, I decided to take down my Yahoo profile altogether.

Then, Brandon emailed me with a cursory introduction. He sounded intriguing, not like the others. Still, I brushed him off with a brief and dismissive reply, telling him that if he wanted to know more about me, he could just read my personal blog.

Undeterred, Brandon wrote back a day later. It was then I realized he had read through two years worth of crazy, rambling blog entries. I was summarily impressed.

We started exchanging long emails, more like tomes, really. After three weeks of emails, furtive Yahoo messaging at work, and online chats, Brandon wanted to meet in person. I kept finding reasons and excuses to put him off. By this point, I liked him far too much to have the relationship we had - even if it was just an online relationship - ruined by meeting in person. I really did think he would take one look at me and be so disgusted by how fat I was that he would literally run in the opposite direction.

But Brandon was persistent, annoyingly so. I agreed to meet him at a coffee house – really just to shut him up. But I warned him: I’ve gained some weight and I am certainly not a Barbie doll so if you’re expecting a thin girl, keep looking.”

A nanosecond later, he replied back, “I don’t care what you look like.”

We met at a crowded coffeehouse on Monday, July 25, 2005. We moved in together scarcely two months later. He proposed on Valentine’s Day last year and nearly five months later - exactly two years from the day we met - we were married in front of a beautiful Victorian mansion on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Our wedding web page is here and our online wedding photo album is here.

The last day I deliberately starved myself ended the day I met my husband. Part of this is because, as Kate notes, it’s much easier to tune out negative messages when you have someone who loves you - as you are - reinforcing his unconditional love for you on a daily basis. But as too many of us know, it’s not enough for someone to tell you how beautiful and lovable you are. You have to believe it.

It was a slow, meandering process by which I came to believe I was capable and worthy of giving and receiving love. There are times, even today, I curve up tight against my husband’s sleeping body, listen to the rhythmic beating of his heart against my cheek and the purring of the cat lying above our heads, and I wonder by what stroke of good fortune I came to be lying here, in this bed, in this life.

Relationships contain within them a mutual reciprocity, the most basic of which is a promise to be there for the other person. And I’m not talking about being there in just the emotional support kind of sense. I’m talking being there as is Physically Being There. Of all the things I could ever possibly say or do to hurt my husband, none would would drain his soul as that of me deliberately doing something that might result in my own physical injury or death. I think about him in those anxious moments when I feel too-full or too-fat or too-stressed and I want to go stick my head in the toilet and throw until my throat is raw and my body and soul empty. I think of my husband finding me sprawled in a pool of vomit on the bathroom floor, dead of a heart attack or stroke. I think of this and I wait until eventually, the urge passes and I am sane once more.

For me, this is the true measure of control; one that requires far more willpower than it ever did to starve myself.

From time to time, I wonder how my life would be now if I had let my insecurities about my body and weight keep me from meeting Brandon that balmy night in July. Not only is my life with him rich and full of love like I have never known before, through him, I now have a wonderful second family whom I have come to treasure as my own. A family who, like Brandon, loves and accepts me - as I am.

There are moments when I wonder how many other wonderful things have I missed out on by allowing my fears and hang-ups over the way I look dictate my actions. What good could I have achieved had I focused on changing the world instead of changing my body? Many bloggers have written letters to their despondent 14-year-old selves, inspired by this post at Big Fat Deal. But if I could go back in time and whisper in the ear of the girl I was, I wouldn’t breathe a single solitary word.

Everything in my life - every challenge, heartache, suffering and delusion - has brought me to where I am now and to Brandon. And I am much stronger for it. Much stronger.

I am fat, but I am healthy and strong in body, and more importantly, in mind and spirit. My relationship with food is the sanest and healthiest it has ever been. I know who I am, what I believe in, and the kind of person I don’t want to become. I am madly in love with a man who is madly in love with me.

It is enough.

(This entry began as an ode to my husband. But along the way, it somehow became more of a Valentine to myself.)

The New York Times article on the fatosphere has generated a lot of buzz over both the idea of fat acceptance and for this site in particular. Sadly, it has done little to clear up the many stereotypes about fat and body image for some obstinate people (which I will address in a follow-up post soon), but has fortunately served to provide an “Aha!” moment for many more people who struggle with relationships with their bodies.

The positive article and great fallout has been absolutely fabulous, but I have another exciting element to the story to share. Shortly after the article debuted, I was contacted by a woman who says she is the little girl featured in the header graphic above and reprinted in the Times – the one enjoying that delicious hunk of chocolate cake – who was absolutely flabbergasted that the 1954 image is still in circulation. And featured in the New York Times, no less!

A flurry of emails ensued and I was able to call Barbara Siegal, the now 61-year-old former child model featured in the 1954 Pillsbury ad last night. She was alerted to the Times story via an excited call from her equally flabbergasted sister around 8 a.m. that day. Here’s her story.

Barbara was 8-years-old in 1954, already an experienced child model who had begun modeling at the age of 4 and later made the transition into acting on live television and in television commercials. Her sister also went on to become a child actress.

“My father thought I was just beautiful,” said Barbara. “So, I started modeling. Mine was a wholesome world. My mother always said it had to be fun.”

Barbara lived in Brooklyn at the time and modeling meant trips to the Big Apple, where she and her mother would turn the experience into an adventure. She’s appeared in ads for Franco-American spaghetti, Jell-o and pudding ads. She served as the model for the Betsy McCall doll ads and, in an article she wrote for Doll magazine, described what it was like “Being Betsy McCall.” Legend has it that the Betsy McCall doll was modeled after her. And of course, she appeared in the classic 1954 Pillsbury ad gracing this site.

One particular Franco-American ad of Barbara featured as a set of quadruplets even won an award for design in a pre-Photoshop era, where such design illusions were a novelty.

Later, Barbara appeared in live television shows like Kraft Television Theatre, Armstrong Circle Theatre, Play of the Week, and most recently, Law and Order and Guiding Light.

The New York native raised three children while doing commercials for Pampers, Pillsbury, Jello-, Dreft detergent, and others. Last year she appeared off Broadway in The Last Barbeque. Barbara lectures on cruise ships about the craft of acting and her experiences and last May, she lectured with Elder Hostel at New York’s Lincoln Center celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of The Most Happy Fella, a Broadway play she appeared in at the age of nine.

Barbara’s also appeared on Broadway in The Rope Dancers, A Clearing in the Wood and The Playroom. She now divides her time between teaching, writing, lecturing and spending time with her three grandsons, Zach, Jason and Eli.

Barbara remembers the Pillsbury cake ad above very distinctly. She had lost her two front teeth and had to wear a set of false teeth that “tasted awful.” For the ad, she made $10 an hour and of course, got to indulge in delicious cake she remembers enjoying very much.

“I’m sure that I did,” said Barbara, with a laugh. “You can see by the look in my eyes, I did. Who wouldn’t want to be the kid who looked like that?”

Barbara continued acting until as she says, the profession “sort of stopped me.” The New York native went on to pursue a career in teaching and raised a family.

“I never got tall and was never skinny enough to be a Seventeen model,” said Barbara, who wasn’t then and isn’t now overweight.

Any worries I had that Barbara would object to the use of her image on a site promoting body image and healthy relationships with food were quickly put to rest. Barbara admits that when she first heard the provocative title of the blog, she was apprehensive about what the site promoted.

But after reading through the blog and speaking with me – in which I explained how I felt the ad epitomized the sheer delight of food, even foods we commonly associate as “bad” foods – the grandmother assured me she had no qualms about her image being promoted here.

“I do agree with your message,” said Barbara. “And I do agree chocolate cake is very good.”

New marketing research by toy manufacturer Martin Yaffe gives some cause for celebration. The company put this year’s top Christmas toys to the test, with seven out of 10 girls opting to play with toys designed for boys over the traditional girls’ alternatives.

All disgust at the perpetuation of gender roles aside, here’s the real cause celeb: Bob the Builder emerged as the top coveted character this Christmas, outshining girl favorites like Barbie and Bratz.

Barbie, of course, has breasts so massive her slender frame would not be able to support such heaving bosoms, while the more recent Bratz dolls have increasingly come under fire for contributing to the sexualization of girls.

The American Psychological Association recently released research that shows exposure to sexy images from an early age has a devastating impact on mental and physical health, leading to low self-esteem, depression and the onset of eating disorders.

Connie Sobczak nearly lost her life to bulimia. But she was lucky. She recovered. Her sister Stephanie did not. She died from eating disorder complications at the age of 36.

In memory of her sister, Connie founded The Body Positive, a nonprofit organization that promotes healthy living and body acceptance - at every size. Now, Connie has been identified as one of the nation’s top 40 heroes and is in the running to be named “America’s Greatest Hometown Hero” in the 6th Annual Volvo for life Awards - an annual, nationwide search for real-life heroes across America.

You can read more about Connie’s story and vote for her here at www.volvoforlifeawards.com (under the quality category).

Every vote counts, so if you have the chance, vote and vote often (it’s permitted). The voting period runs through Jan. 7, and will determine the top three finalists in each category. The top hero in each category will receive $100,000 for their charities; two runners-up will receive $25,000. The top winner overall will go on to receive the title of “America’s Greatest Hometown Hero,” and with it, a new Volvo car every three years for life.