Browsing around the web, I have found a few sites that are particularly obnoxious. One site offers support for the spouses of fat people. According to the site, being “fat” shows disrespect.

How do we define “fat”? Is it any woman’s dress size over 2? And which size 2 shall we use? The one that designers of extremely high-priced clothing cut to? I’ve found that size 2 to be very generous. So generous that it can sometimes correspond to size 8 or 10 in less expensive clothing.

Who decreed that only thin women are beautiful? Their husbands or boyfriends? Do they really like stick-thin women who are obsessed with watching what they weigh so they can fit into awful clothing designed for coat hangers?

Perhaps it’s the media that sets the standard for female beauty. Perhaps not since a lot of the most written about women aren’t size 0’s or size 2’s. Paris Hilton might be but Pamela Anderson could never be. Which one would most men want to see naked? The fat Pamela or the stylishly thin Paris?

I thought Kirstie Alley was quite ingenious when she took her weight battle public. She “let it all hang out” and turned a sagging (no pun intended) career in a new direction. She’s older, wiser, and 75 pounds lighter now. And, if she’s like most of us, she’ll continue to battle to keep the weight from returning.

What weight is “normal”? In centuries past, very round women were admired. Their voluptuous figures reflected their pampered lifestyles. Thin meant hunger and poverty.

In decades past, women on stage and screen also were quite voluptuous. Mae West comes to mind. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jayne Mansfield. I wonder how any of them would have fared in today’s world if they were trying to make it big in the movies or on Broadway. Marilyn wore a size 16!! Gasp!

The popular women of the 50’s were not only heavier than today’s “ideal” they were also shorter. And there’s the rub. We look at numbers… 91 (Twiggy, the start of the thin craze) or 105 or 110 or 120 which fit well with a 5′2″ frame and project those same numbers as the ideal weight for today’s 5′10″ frame. It just doesn’t work.

Shall we re-arrange our thinking so that women don’t have to binge and purge to fit into a certain size? Or shall we keep women of a certain weight ashamed of their bodies?

There are some good fat positive books available. One I recommend is FAT!SO? written by Marilyn Wann.

For the record, back when it was “in” to be 5′2″ and pleasingly plump, I was the laughable oddity at 5′10″ and 105 pounds.