Fat! Fit? Fabulous!

Fat! Fit? Fabulous!

Meet the East Bay activists and researchers at the center of the new civil-rights movement known as Health at Every Size.
By Lauren Gard

The last thing Lake Merritt pedestrians expected to see on a recent Thursday afternoon was a fat, vibrant woman inviting them to step onto a scale. "Would you like a free compliment?" Marilyn Wann called out to a group of teenage girls on the concrete path. She motioned to the scale, which she'd covered with pink paint and sparkly silver paper. Silver pipe cleaners across the bottom spelled "YAY!"

A lanky girl with long braids pulled into a ponytail eyed the glittery object with suspicion. "I do not need to know my weight," she said defiantly.

"Oh, this won't give you a number, only a compliment," Wann said, her vintage aluminum-framed glasses glinting in the sunlight.

"What is it?" the girl asked.

"It's a Yay Scale."

The girl squinted at it for a moment, still clearly confused, then shrugged and stepped on. The dial spun and came to rest.

"You're gorgeous," Wann announced.

"Ooh, that's nice," the girl replied with a grin. Soon her friends had all clambered on to take their own Yay readings.

"What are you doing this for?" asked one who'd just been declared "fine!"

"I'm part of a group of people who try to encourage good nutrition and fitness, whatever your size," Wann said, handing each teen a slip of pink paper listing five body-positive Web sites.

Within an hour, several dozen people had collected such spontaneous flattery. A father and his teenage son riding their bikes: "What a way to make a guy's day," the father said after being deemed sexy. "And look at that — my son is fine!" A toned jogger in her twenties whose face initially fell when she realized the scale wouldn't divulge her weight: "Yummy," she read with a smile, after stepping on anyway. "That's better than 140, right?"

A few people recognized Wann, who proselytized body acceptance in a black T-shirt and her signature hot-pink attire of pedalpusher jeans, suede loafers, and a purse: "Are you Marilyn?" a young woman asked. "The one who wrote Fat!So?"

"Yes, that's me," Wann admitted, blushing so her cheeks matched her bubblegum-hued MAC lipstick.

"I love that book," the girl gushed before asking Wann to autograph the handout. "It really helped me!"

At 39, Wann is the uncontested queen of the modern American fat-pride movement. The San Francisco resident carries around a hundred or so pounds more than the US government thinks she should. When she was denied health insurance in 1993 based solely on that fact, she launched a protest zine called Fat!So?, which evolved into a book that has sold fifteen thousand copies, which in turn inspired a popular Web site, all of which have given way to a thriving speaking career. Wann began making Yay Scales five years ago, and now offers them up via word of mouth and, soon, through VoluptuArt.com, an online shop stocked solely with body-positive art that will be run by Richmond therapist Nomi Dekel.

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An activism opportunity

Stacy Bias, founder of FatGirl Speaks is putting together a book and is looking to interview fat women about their experiences.

The book "will consist of a series of monologues suitable for stage performance, all around the topic of fat. Bias intends to interview 150+ women of size, all across the United States, and in Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Samoa, Asia, India and South America."

So all you fat chicks out there, check out her site for more info on the project and how to contact her if you are interested in being interviewed for the project.

Follow the money

So who is sponsoring the 10th International Congress on Obesity 2006? A whole lotta companies with a vested interest in selling things to fat people to try and make them thin (most with a very miserable success rate. There is no profit in people who actually like themselves, so these companies have to come up with epidemics and pandemics to panic people in to buying their crap.

Here's a tidbit, everyone in the world is now "pre-hypertensive" and "pre-diabetic" since the drug companies are now trying to get people who don't have these problems onto medications so they can sell more.