SIze 14 Ain't Fat, or "Vogue" is french for weight-obsessed

I was watching CBS Sunday Morning just now, and damned if they didn't have a segment about people refusing to diet (as if that were something new; by March there will be more 'weight revolutionaries' than Zantrex-3 ads in women's magazines).

Carol Alt was presented as some sort of Brave New Woman for accepting her size 14 self, and there was a pseudo-serious interview with Wendy Shanker, the author of "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life" (who, big surprise, was shown in a grocery store, blithely offering food to the thin journalist).

I'm all for self-acceptance. I wish I could have some. But I spent an hour this morning reading Vogue too, (an old issue; one in which a painfully honest reader wrote in to the editors:
"My friends and I consider the Shape Issue the Fat Issue. Why does VOGUE feel compelled to be politcally correct by issuing content meant for those who don't exactly take care of themselves?"
Let's keep in mind that the "Fat" women in there were plus size models, at most a size 10 or 12 (In Kate Dillon's case, perhaps a size 14, but she's tall).

It's no secret that VOGUE , as everyone else in the fashion world, despises anyone with a double-digit size other than 00. And who can blame them? If fashion were meant for the Average Jane, they'd hardly be the elitist fantasies they're meant to be, and advertising would dry up. What's the fun in advertising stuff everyone can wear? And how could we be conned into buying things we don't need unless we were convinced we would be ugly, unloveable, and (horror of horrors) middle-class without them?

Anyway, I posted this on makeupalley.com in response to the segment:

Puh-lease. Size 14 ain't fat. I could care less if Carol Alt 'blew up' to a "whopping" size 14 to be a 'plus size model'.
Plus size models are size 10 and that ain't fat either.
So when they say 'don't diet', but juxtapose the statement with obviously unflattering pictures of fat people, what the hell am I supposed to think? Take the advice of the doctor that says "Focus on fitness?!"
Gimme a break. Said it once, I'll say it again: I wish I had the willpower to just Not Eat, and I'd gladly die at 60 if I could just be a size 8 for the rest of my days.
It's not about health. Nobody gives a rats @$$ about if oveweight people are healthy. We're treated as if we'd be better off dead anyway. It's about Being Thin and getting closer to an ideal.
So if I hear from anyone: my mother, fiance, or the
@#$@# TV tell me "oh, just get healthy," I'm going to sit on them until they take it back.
Eff health. designers, men, and job interviewers don't care if
you're healthy. Do you look right?

I wish I'd had the guts to say what I wanted to, which was "I wish i had the guts (pun intended) to be anorexic or bulimic." Nobody tells women with eating disorders that they'd be better off fat.
Nobody's better off fat. Even my own mother would rather me wire my jaws shut or throw up on command than gain another pound.

I can't say I blame her, or disagree.

Just don't tell my therapist.