Episode 28: Seeing Herself–How One Listener’s Social Media Presence is A Tool In Her Recovery

Like many fat women–more than we could even count–Nush is in recovery from a near lifetime of disordered eating. But she’s finding her own way by using social media. Nush’s insta is a beautiful collage of selfies and outfit photos that are for her more than anyone. When she looks at these photos she can

Episode 27: Yeah I’m Fat and I Don’t Give A Fuck–Grace Tells Her Story

We know by now that “inclusive” in beauty and body positive campaigns doesn’t necessarily mean that people of color are represented. Slowly, though (very, very slowly) the tide seems to be turning and retailers seem to be hearing our calls for non-white representation. But it’s still so incredibly rare to see fat Asian people in

Episode 26: You Have Qualities That Littleness Can Never Possess–Meredith Noble of Made on a Generous Plan on Health at Every Size

As a superfat woman and fat activist, I’ve always felt a little skeptical about Health at Every Size. “Health” just isn’t a word that treats fat people very well. In fact, it’s very often used as a weapon that attempts to derail fat pos discussion. I’ve always assumed that it was part of the “good fatty”

Episode 25: “How American Diet Culture Negatively Affects Latinas”–A Chat with Author Viviana Rose

White women think we have a monopoly on body size oppression. We’ve all heard (and probably repeated at some point) the racist stereotype that fatness is more accepted in black and brown communities. This is simply not true, and we white people should get out of the way and let fat POC tell their own stories about

Episode 24: “Just Be Confident!” and Other Useless Advice For Fat People

It’s kind of our culture’s greatest tradition to tell each other how to act and what’s good for us. “Just be confident!” is one of those vague directives that we’ve all heard a hundred times–it’s the apparent solution to all of our problems. Episode 24: “Just Be Confident!” and Other Useless Advice for Fat People

Episode 23: Cat Polivoda, Cake Plus Size Resale, & Building a Business that Serves the Fat Community

“Or I could just say whatever and open a plus size thrift shop…”  What do you do when you’re a fashion-forward, business-minded woman who is fed up by how difficult plus size shopping can be? You create something different. That’s what Cat Polivoda did when she created Cat’s Closet. It started with just selling her

Episode 22: Today in Fatness (June 2017)

Between TFL episodes there are often stories about fatness and activism that I want to comment on, but most of the time they’re just quick little things that are either too small or too new to talk about in a full episode. Some of these are things that I feel are actually incredibly significant for our movement,

Episode 21: From Body Shame to SassyPants–An interview with Elizabeth Terry

Elizabeth Terry was a big kid who started attending Weight Watchers meetings with her mom before she even hit puberty. She learned body shame before she learned algebra, and she carried that shame with her throughout middle and high school. In her first email to me, her opening line was “I have had the wonderful

Episode 4: It’s a Big Big World–A response to This American Life’s Tell Me I’m Fat

So This American Life is rerunning their “Tell Me I’m Fat” episode from last summer this week, and I keep seeing people discover this episode on NPR’s facebook page and talk about how life-changing it was for them. But if you’ve heard Episode 4 of The Fat Lip, you know that I didn’t think it

Episode 20: Weight Loss Surgery Isn’t Selling Out, But Justifying it by Fat Shaming Is

The fat positive community was shaken up last week when Ashley Nell Tipton, one of our few fat representatives in mainstream entertainment, announced that she had weight loss surgery last month. But the community’s shock and hurt wasn’t for the reason you think. Sure it smarts to hear that we’re losing one of our tiny

Episode 19: Desiring Fat People: Normal Preference or Fat Fetish?

If you’re a fat person (particularly a fat woman,) you are no stranger to the “I like big women” comment. It’s awkward, and it often feels like the speaker feels entitled to special privileges or access based on this admission. For fat people this can be a wholly unwelcome message. We want to date people who want

Episode 18: The Fat Lady Sings- A conversation on fat people as patients of psychotherapy with author Cheryl Fuller

Cheryl Fuller is a Jungian psychotherapist and a fat woman, and throughout her career she has confronted the common approaches to working with fat people in therapy. Her new book, The Fat Lady Sings: A Psychological Exploration of the Cultural Fat Complex and Its Effects, explores the trauma of fat stigma and the troubling practice of recommending

Episode 17: My 600Lb Life, Infinifats, and Darlene Cates: Fat activism is underserving our fattest peers

I recently got an email from a listener asking for my thoughts on My 600Lb Life, a TLC show about very fat people, most of whom are pursuing weight loss surgery. I have been thinking about this show for a while, but my problem with shows like these have nothing to do with the fat people

Episode 16: TSA Pat-Downs, SheWees, and the Wonders of Pre-boarding–Air Travel for Superfats

Alison covered superfat air travel extensively in her blog post (Read it here!) but we wanted to take an episode to go over some of the most important things to keep in mind when you’re traveling by air. In this episode we talk about how to prepare for your flight, how to get through security,

Episode 15: Fats of the Resistance–You can resist even if you can’t march!

In the last couple of weeks especially, we’ve seen millions upon millions of people around the world protesting the actions of the new US president. Immediately following the election, Ann Coulter tweeted in response to protests that “without fat girls, there would be no protests.” And for once I think she’s absolutely right! But some