Large & Lovely Site
	M. E. Wood BellaOnline's Large & Lovely Editor

10 Fat Stereotypes
I did want to take a few minutes to highlight some fat stereotypes that seem to be coming through my in-box but before that I think it's important to look at what a "stereotype" is. According to Merriam-Webster online, it means to have "a

A Retouched World
It probably comes as no surprise that the images used for most (if not all) magazine covers have been retouched in some way as well as many images within their pages. Many have complained about it over the years including myself. We've often been given the sore excuse

Age, Size, and Trends
I do not think we can put an age or a size limitation on them. If a woman can rock a fad or a trend and she feels good doing it then she should go for it without fear of a backlash.

Arm Chair Aggravation
Why do chairs have arms? Why is it they are only made for small butts when supposedly 60% of the population is overweight?

Britney Spears Fat?
Everywhere I look I see headlines and articles on how fat, pop icon and new mother Britney Spears is. Only on our planet could people thing of calling this blonde bombshell "fat".

Fat Cliques
We segregated ourselves into groups we felt most comfortable with and while on occasion we associated with other members of other groups we pretty much stuck to our own clique.

Fat People are Not Alone
Articles abound on how the war on fat people is the only acceptable form of discrimination. I guess you can say I jumped on the band wagon with everyone else. Yesterday I received a letter from a man named Christopher Hamre.

Getting the Message
"400-600 advertisements bombard us everyday in magazines, on billboards, on TV, and in newspapers. One in 11 has a direct message about beauty, not even counting the

Kirstie Alley Lost 60lbs!
Wow, it´s amazing, isn´t it? Over the last year I´ve watched Kirstie lose weight yet again. This time with the help of JC. I´ve never really minded Kirstie Alley. Her raspy voice and quirky comedies have always provided some

Making My Friends Fat
I do not know why but I expected someone as spiritually minded a Chopra to have a better view of fat people (and how they become fat). But basically he is spewing the same fat hate propaganda that many other news sources are pushing out -- stay away from fat people because they will make you fat!

Mirror, Mirror...
So what is the infatuation with our image? What went through our minds thousands of years ago when we first glanced into a puddle and saw our image? Something made us want to capture it. Mirrors are put up everywhere and if there aren't mirrors there's highly reflective glass or other surfaces.

Not Another Fat Suit Wearing Celebrity
Can anyone who dons a fat suit really know what it's like to live in a 350lb body? Tyra Banks is going to dress up in a fat suit for an upcoming episode of her talk show.

Obesity and Suicide Success Rates
According to ABC news (via Reuters), a Harvard School of Public Heath doctor assessed a study based on the suicide rates in the United States during 2004/05. One quarter of the suicides involved people who were obese (based on BMI). This number seems incredibly high to me but overall "there...

Real Women
Daily we are bombarded with images of beautiful women. These beautiful women all have one thing in common. They are skinny.

Revisiting Childhood Dreams
When you were a child what did you want to be when you grew up? Chances are you weren't thinking in terms of being thin. Those wishes came with puberty. From then on so much time has been spent focusing on the outside that we've forgotten to take care of the inside.

Sizing Up Our Society
We are living in a world of such political correctness it’s hard to know whether we’re coming or going. We have to be careful of when and how we say what we say and to who.

Supporting Crystal Renn
Photos of Crystal Renn looking ghastly skinny in comparison to her usual curvy self have been circulating the internet the last few weeks with just as ghastly commentary on whether she was sick and how could she dare speak out being plus size if she didn't maintain her plus size status.

Taking Away Fat Kids
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a "commentary" by Lindsey Murtagh, JD, MPH and David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD titled, State Intervention in Life-Threatening Childhood Obesity where basically it recommends that obese children be taken away from their parents...

The ABC's of Being Fat
The new ABC´s, of being fat that is, according to the Large & Lovely site.

The Hairy Lip
Today, for the first time, I went to the beauty parlour for electrolysis of my moustache. I have been mulling this over for a few years; the last year almost obsessively,

The Mysterious Bosom - the tale of one woman's breasts
Do you remember the moment when you first became aware (or self conscious) of your body? I do. It was summer. Hot and sticky. I was probably five or six years old.

The Obesity Miff
With so much of the population overweight or on the verge of obesity the science community just can´t figure out why. They´re stumped. With so many fat people out

The Word 'FAT'
I like the word fat. It's short. Easy to write. Requires no thought once so ever. When you say it people know what you mean. Sure I could use other words. Obese is a nice medical term ...

What is Plus Size
There is a growing debate, even among the plus size community, on what is considered plus size. Where does the fat begin and where does it end? You probably have an image in your mind of what a plus size person looks like. But have you ever really thought about it as the range it is?

Youthful and Fat or Aged and Scrawny
As I get older, instead of thinking of all the reasons why I should be a size 0, I´ve gravitated to reasons why it´s ok to be fat. I´ve come to the conclusion that fat people´s faces tend to look better as they age.