Anon
Just in response to the person who was going on about how can you/we promote obesity as a positive body image, 'get off the couch', 'stop stuffing our faces' blah de blah... Well, I don't think it anything to do with promoting obesity and it's more about accepting that overweight people exist in society and that we shouldn't as a group be prejudiced against just because of our size.

OK it may not necessarily be great for one to be morbidly obese (I imagine though that being super size is in fact a minority) and most 'obesity' is in fact people that are just a couple to a few stone overweight. I myself am catergorized as 'obese' by the medical profession, I am a size 20-22. My blood pressure is good, my cholesterol is low, I don't smoke and I have a good resting heartbeat. I also take regular exercise (used to run 3-4 miles, 4 times a week) and eat my five portions of fruit and veg!.

However, I am prejudiced against in society, clothes have to purchased seperately in outsize sections away from the gaze of other shoppers or one has to go to 'specialist' shops. Also, inorder to get a date I usually have to join a 'specialist' website to ensure that only men who have an overall preference for a larger figure will see me. Overall, the media and public opinion in general is that I shall feel ashamed and digusted by more body for obviously being a gluttonous pig. There are many ways in which people gain weight ie lack of nutritional education, not being able to afford the 'right' food, gradual, steady intake of too many calories over a long period of time, yo-yo dieting and in my case an actual eating disorder. Where anorexia and bulminia are given a lot of sympathetic media attention, compulvise eating is not.

However, through my therapy experience compulsive eating is the symptom of many of the same psychological factors involved as anorexia and bulminia: depression, low-self esteem, child abuse etc. However, society has yet matured enough to understand this and still uses fat as the last bastion to undermine, humiliate and chastise people. Ultimately, no matter how you get/remain thin or that this has damaged your health, it is still 'cooler' than being overweight and warrants more sympathy and understanding.

Let us also not forget that fat is a very lucrative industry. The more we eat the more money the corporations make! Why else is food sold in such a provocative, appealing manner and there is soooo much 'junk' high carb/fat food available on the market? I am yet to see adverts on the television encouraging people to eat there 5 portions of fruit and vegetables...? They want us to get fat to make them money and then to purchase 'diet' products (where the media etc comes in, reviling fat etc) to lose weight and go to the gym. To me, it is all part of a cynical, consumer cycle that we have all been sucked into on varying levels. Finally, I believe, that this overall obsession with body image has caused society to become very apathetic and removed from the more important issues ie politics. Perhaps, more importantly it is still part of the ongoing opression of woman: getting us to strive for unobtainable perfection whilst spending loads of money along the way.

Altogether, making sure we remain passive and docile : locked within the boundaries of our bodily insecurities, therefore maintaining the status quo in our patriarchal society. Anyway, that is enough from me at the moment! Thanks very much for pioneering this website.

Disagree with you SO MUCH -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think it is entirely wrong to promote obesity as a positive body image, if someone promoted a severe anorexic as a positive body image they would be jumped upon from a great height. You slate fashion mags etc for promoting thinness so what on earth do you think you're doing? Obese people are, generally, very unhealthy. I reckon if you and I had to race to catch a train I'd beat you hands down, by the time you were even half way to getting your breath back I would probably have got my seat and ordered a cafe latte and a muffin and my pulse rate would have returned to normal. Please don't even think about saying fat is the new black with all those poor fat little kids out there who will probably die before their parents being brainwashed into thinking it is now fashionable to pig out, lounge on the sofa all day and get bigger and bigger. Why not promote a normal healthy way of life? Surely that would be better, normal shapes are ok, like the Dove advert, promoting normal shaped women. And exercise? What about exercise? Our bodies are made to exercise, that's what we are meant to do, we are NOT meant to slob and stuff our faces with food, the resulting overweight nation is proof of that. Why don't we just call smoking "the new black" or drinking ourselves stupid???

As if the perception that you could possibly be 500lbs would be horrible. I'll grant you that carrying around 400 extra pounds probably isn't as healthy as not, but if you wish to be spouting "positive body image", you've got to at least pretend to be accepting of EVERY body. The message you're sending is that it's ok to have *SOME* body fat, but clearly not as much as *that* woman. Not good. Not good at all.

I feel pressure to be just like everyone else and I think this means thin, I don't think I will ever be happy unless I am thin but I am not thin now

I agree with everything you say.
I have been large all my life and prejudice has made me very unhappy.

I notice the thin person, on reaching the train, would order themselves a latte and a muffin...how fattening is that? lol So, it's ok for them to stuff their face on junk because they have the good fortune to have good metabolism! Be very careful, one day you might be fat too and begging the good people on here forgiveness for your past bigotry.