fat is the new black

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Welcome to Fat Is The New Black

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We're working towards a thousand and one things you can do with your Fattitude, your wonderful attitude towards simply being YOU!  First, you can read all about Vicki Swinden, founder of Fat Is The New Black.  Then check out everything on the site - Get yourself into our Forum where you can chat about our latest subjects including OBESITY: IS IT TO DO WITH AFFLUENCE OR INFLUENCE - don't forget to vote in our Poll!  WE ARE VERY PLEASED TO INTRODUCE YOU TO EMMA BRITTON, READ MORE ABOUT HER IN OUR WEIGHT MANAGEMENT SECTION, our brand new fashion magazine, how to manage your weight with fitness and Fattitude, joining The Fattitude Club, picking up your very own Bum Curtains in our Shop, catching up with friends via The Forum - it's all here, constantly updated and changing to keep up with you.

That's our Fattitude at Fat Is The New Black.   Show Us Yours!

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How many times have we been asked about the title for our website?  Fat is the New Black is entirely a fashion statement - as always the phrase "the New Black" is - remember the year the fashionistas decided brown was the New Black - so we all wore brown to the Christmas Party? Well that's exactly what we are talking about.

Look back through history - Reubens painted portraits of fat women; fat was fashionable - the Edwardians and Victorians used their fat to show off their wealth; fat was fashionable. We, on the other hand, use our media to show that only thin is acceptable - look around you at magazines, wall hordings, television advertisements - you won't see many fat people there.  We don't exist or if we do, then we are gruesome people to be avoided.  Just imagine for a moment, a world in which you, a so-called NORMAL person (apparantly "normal" = slim) suddenly didn't fit in - you ceased to exist.................now you know how we feel.

We work with people to make them feel better about themselves because until they do, their health will continue to suffer, they will continue to be afraid to leave the house to experience, once again, the villification of those around them and as long as YOU continue to drive fat people inside, they won't be taking as active a role in society as they could and they are very unlikely to be physically active - and as you know, physical activity increases fitness irrespective of body size.

 

Vicki Swinden, Fat is the New Black in the press.

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You'll often see, hear or read about things Vicki is involved with in the national or local press, radio and tv.

Vicki continues to work regularly for the BBC in local, regional and national radio shows.  You will hear her at least once a week commenting on the great obesity debate, discussing Fattitude and more.  A great broadcaster with a lively sense of humour she talks on many subjects besides obesity commenting recently on infidelity.

Vicki writes for several publications.

She has been asked to take part in many of the current reality TV shows but as yet has not sallied forth - although she's always delighted to be asked! 

BBC; ITV; Sky; Channel 5; The World Service, Local Radio, Local Newspapers; National Newspapers; All Over The Internet!  No stone unturned by journalists trying to find a Fat Woman to comment on the lastest obesity tale

Vicki Says:

Summer 2008 - I've had a very busy year to date and managed to turn down more work than I have done - Newshounds everywhere chased me all over Glastonbury Festival for comment - not easy to broadcast from beside the Pyramid Stage when I was supposed to be playing a gig for Festival Medical Services - and again whilst on holiday in Turkey I was hunted down and found beside a swimming pool by several hapless reporters..........sorry guys but I can't spend ALL my time working with you when my family want comment on the size of the ice chunks in my cold drink!

This is turning out to be one helluva week! In the last couple of days the Bannatyne Battle has commenced - Radio 4, Radio 5, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Observer, GMTV, Radio Sheffield, Radio Wales.....and it continues.

To bring you up to speed Duncan Bannatyne has suggested he would not employ fat people - he insists that his words have been taken out of context - but in the interviews in which we have both taken part he has continued to use the words "thin, fit and looking good" in the same sentence, proving, I feel,  his innate belief that if we are fat, we don't LOOK good and therefore are not fit and therefore are not as employable - without even being given a chance to prove ourselves in the job for which we have applied.

I am not a fool and neither are you............................I don't suggest that we go about applying for jobs we cannot do....................we must make our own judgement on that.............BUT if we feel able to undertake the tasks involved in the job WE MUST NOT BE PREJUDGED ON OUR SIZE - on our "look".  There is no scientific evidence to suggest that we are less able, more lazy, or that we spend our days "drinking beer, smoking fags and eating pies" as Bannatyne is alleged to have said.  Whether the words were taken out of context or not - I suggest those words must have been used and this is a pre-judgement of all fat people which I find wholly unacceptable.

He insists that he employs fat people and his organisation helps them to adopt a healthy lifestyle.  He insists that he wishes to "help fat people" -  I have told him(on GMTV yesterday) that I am more than happy to work with him and his organisation to bring them up to speed on how to do this - he tells me I am "hired" - but I am still sceptical - is he simply trying to mitigate any potential damage he may have incurred against his organisation in the first place? (we all remember what happened to Gerald Ratners jewellery business in 1991 when he announced that his product was crap).  Has Duncan Bannatyne made a "Ratneresque" comment?  Will his pre judgement affect his decisions in that Dragons Den?

But in spite of all that - I am willing to work with anyone who feels their deep seated prejudice may affect their decisions.........there would be no point in me ranting and raving about the problems and prejudice we face without providing a feasible solution.

I will wait to hear from Bannatyne or his representatives...............and indeed from anyone else........

 

Something of a row is breaking out over comments made recently by the Dragons Den entrepeneur Duncan Bannatyne - apparantly he too subscribes to the notion that fat people won't work as hard as thin people.  The story broke in The Observer over this weekend.  Of course, we don't agree with him.  Of course, my phone is ringing off the hook with journalists wanting to cover this story and pick up our take on it.

Personally I am most surprised by the owner of a chain of gymnasiums making these kind of comments - one does then have the impression that he is not going to support fat people working out in his gym's which rather cuts down his market place when you consider that there are apparantly 40% of the adult population trying to find ways of dealing with their obesity.

I know that many of the journalists talking to me today are keen to get Duncan and I in a room together to discuss the whole subject..........................watch this space!

 

My list of appearances is now really too long to include here - suffice to say that Radio 5 Live still keep me up late at night, Radios Leeds and Manchester still phone me very early in the mornings and the Asian Network still keep me on air for 45 minutes at a time.  I LOVE IT!!!!

Magazines and newspapers all over the country have featured Vicki and Fattitude many times over the last few months.

Voice overs for museum pieces and writing articles all keep me jolly busy too!

 

Here is my admission, moving house, moving offices, organising children, going on holiday...............all my excuses for not keeping my list up to date - so here's a catch up.....

Last week: 5 interviews in one day!  Radio 2 with Jeremy Vine, Radio Manchester, twice in one day, Radio York, Coventry and West Midlands Radio - a busy day indeed in response to the news that IVF is not going to be available to the obese.

Over the last few months:

BBC News 24

Radio 5 Live - at least 4 occasions

Radio Manchester - at least 4 occasions

Radio York - half a dozen times

BBC World Service

Love It Magazine

Odd places I have been when a radio interview has taken place:

In the car - parked in a car park obviously! Even I can't concentrate on this arguement whilst driving!

In the car - on a campsite whilst on holiday

In my mother's bedroom

Several different studio's -depending on where they can fit me in on the day

 

 


 

 

Read more...
 

Who Is This Vicki Swinden??

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Vicki Swinden40+ (ok, ok, it's 45!!!!) year old mother of 3 gorgeous children. The Great White Western Woman! A woman of substance; loads of substance! Loves the taste of life and feasts regularly. Singer of some little repute, adventurer and righter of wrongs. Yes but what is she really like?? She's just like you, trying to make enough money to get what she wants, running the kids back and forth for kids clubs, helping out at Rainbows and Brownies, doing kitchen duty at the Rugby Club, waiting for her partner to come in from work to cook something decent, burning everything she cooks cos she forgets it's on the hob, working, joining in on committees, helping out with homework, changing beds, doing the washing, wondering if the qualifications she never got at school will hold her back, shopping, cooking, cleaning, going to the pub with the girls, waiting for the *@**? kitchen fitters............it's just life isn't it??
 

Death of A Starved Model

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We have heard recently of the death of a model on the catwalk from STARVATION.  This girl was so struggling to stay slim to take part in the career she loved that she literally died for the cause.  She was treated for heart failure following several days of not eating.  The USA leads the way in deaths caused by eating disorders followed by Japan and Germany.  How soon will the UK be picking up the pace?  Not long I would suggest given the publicity in all our press about obesity and the continued obsession of the glossy media with the ever thinner celebrity.

 

What If???

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Sue W. in the USA sent this piece over to me - read it!  It makes you think - doesn't it? 
What if fat was healthy because fat people had some cushioning and some reserve food stores to live on, and skinny people were said to be putting themselves at risk, and stigmatized for making this stupid health decision?
What if people went up to skinny girls in the street and said "Oh, you'd be beautiful if you'd just gain weight!"
Or "You're thin, but you're beautiful on the inside!" Or looked at me like I was in some way sick and disgusting?
What if all clothes below size 10 came in girly pastels, with the reasoning that small women are underdeveloped and childish?
What if they were called `minus sizes'?
What if thin people had to go to special stores to buy clothes, because none of the regular stores wanted to stock clothes for them, saying that they're disgusting and their patrons wouldn't want to look at them?
What if all models were a size 16 or above, but every once in a while you'd see a "minus size" model in a size 8 cut to make her look larger?
What if "too fat" wasn't the greatest thing, because it was acknowledged to not be terribly healthy, but the models who were "too fat" still got all the modeling jobs, and they were told that they might want to lose a little weight but nobody took it seriously? And meantime "too fat" was infinitely better than "too skinny"?
What if thin people were depicted in the media as obsessed with exercise and starving themselves, and thus not sexually interested? And fat people were depicted as able to enjoy their food, and their lovers, with relish?
What if a TV character as popular as Friends' Monica was depicted as once having been thin, not even unhealthily so, and she was the butt of jokes for that?
What if X percent of the American population was labeled "underweight" ?
What if food commercials focused not on low-fat, but high in nutrients to gain weight?
What if people said "I don't understand what's wrong with skinny people. All they have to do is eat! It's not that difficult. They must be pretty stupid not to figure that out."?
What if there were no labels saying "Low Fat" but instead they said "High Fat"?
What if magazines ran stories on "How to Maximize the Glory of your Curves"?
What if 7-year-old girls, copying their moms, asked their friends "Does this make me look too skinny?"
What if magazines ran bogus ads for weight gain powder? And the ads said "Mary gained 25 pounds in 8 weeks combining a high-nutrient diet, exercise to gain muscle mass, and Product X"? And they showed a picture of Mary wearing baggy clothes to make her look skinny and waifish, while in the "After" picture she was trim and tan? And women looked at Mary, who didn't need to gain weight to begin with, and say "If she's skinny, I must be a stick" and started gorging themselves?
What if thin people had to pay more for clothes and underwear and almost no pretty bras came in anything under a size 40?
What if there was an operation to enlarge the size of one's stomach or inject fat under the skin?
What if middle-aged women were admired because they had put on some weight after age 30 and young women were simply `too thin'?
What if kids made jokes like "Your mama's so thin, she blew away when I flapped my arms"?
What if people talked to thin people slowly on the assumption that they were like children?
What if thin people had to learn to be witty, because else they would be utterly ignored by the opposite sex?
What if studies showed that thin could also be healthy, not just fat, but the mass media only paid lip service to them?
This would be ridiculous.
Then why is the reverse still OK?

 

—Author Unknown