Pajiba

I must admit I have a thing for the big girls, I think they are hot and they don’t have mental hang ups like skinny women.

I just sent this to my daughter. She is beautiful, but chubby. She is 17, a jr. in high school, outgoing, intelligent, talented......and never gets asked out. She is so depressed and self-concious about her weight and her life. This book, I think, will not help, but the video might. Hadn't seen it before, so thanks!!!

Dammitjanet,

You remind me of my mother, I was an overweight teenager and I had many issues. I’m sure you mean well, but why do have to say your daughter is beautiful but chubby? Why can’t you just say she’s a beautiful young woman and leave it at that. Trust me, your daughter I well aware of her body.

Ok, poor choice of words on my part. I was just trying to explain for y'all. I don't say that to her. She is just like me....I was "chubby" growing up, and my dad never let me forget it. I don't want to subject her to that. My ex-sister-in-law once put me up against my rail-thin cousin, and commented that if she turned sideways, you wouldn't be able to see HER, but BOY, you would still be able to see me!!

I do know that she is very uncomfortable with her body. She eats right, works out, participates in EVERYTHING at school...but still is not happy with herself. I am supportive of whatever she wants to do or be. I just want her to feel better about herself, and I was hoping this might help.

So, I'm shit at parenting......

So, here she is.....

http://youlookfunny.blogspot.com/

See? Beautiful...

elizabeth, it's ok. I just want y'all to know that I would NEVER say anything to her, because I have been there, too.

I just feel so helpless when she gets depressed....

dammitjanet, encourage your daughter to talk to a therapist if you can. I was SO much like her... still am, really... but it's taken 10 years, countless diets, and weight-loss surgery to make me realize that what I really needed wasn't to change my body, it was to figure myself out. I'm working with a therapist now, and it's making all the difference in the world. Thanks for being a supportive mom - everybody needs one.

Lately, I have a hard time with media regarding women's body image issues in general... For a long time now everything seems to have been about how big is beautiful and skinny is scary. I am naturally thin and always have been. And even though I'm overall more likely to empathize with the indie/bitchy crowd like my fellow Pajibans seem to be, I feel like I get judged or I don't fit in somehow because I'm not overweight and don't have a problem with small girls. Pookie, I think you're great but I don't understand why you would say that skinny women all have hang-ups. I am guessing more big girls have hang-ups if they're the ones that need all these books and things to learn how to accept themselves. And really, being too big IS unhealthy and is something that should be changed in a person, just as being too small is unhealthy and is something that should be changed too.

Well b, you asked. I was knocking (fuckin’) this skinny girl once, and she asked me about bringing in her, in her words, “her fat girl friend.” I’m an overweight guy, and when she spoke those words I was so turned off I could barely get my third nut. b, words matter, and I would hope that you skinny broads would show a little compassion to the big girls.

Pookie, I will have compassion for any "broad", any dude, any whoever. I swear on my pajina that I have dated guys of all shapes and sizes without discrimination, other than wanting them to be people I could connect with on some level. Some of the guys I was most attracted to were what people would consider overweight. They were people who happened to turn me on. What I'm saying is that I am just asking for the same compassion in return. I don't want to be pre-judged as a bitch or an airhead or anything else just because I'm slender.

Screw you Pookie.

Also, coming by today and seeing my name there was kind of a shock. But a very lovely one. I'm glad someone thought it was worth putting up here. :)

Most of us Pajibettes happen to be 34-Ds. Hot geeks are real.

Thank you for posting the video. It made my day.

Oh and the upside of being FAT. Bigger breasts! (Although, finding a good bra in DD is like going through Dante's inferno).

I have never been overweight. In fact, I was always petite and athletic. I still found a way to be depressed though. Why? Because I was a teenage daughter. My parents tore themselves to shreds trying to fix it, but it was puberty, and I was going to go through it whether they liked it or not.
It's not your fault she's sad. It's not your failing that she doesn't think she's as spectacular as you know she is. Just be there, be reliably comforting, and make an effort to distract her from murky thoughts of herself from time to time. Those brief vacations make all the difference.

Fat chicks fixate on their weight because almost all women fixate on weight, not just their own, but other women's, too. Women talk about food and weight like men talk about sports and cars. If you don't sit around and obsess about how much fat something has in it and talk about how much you hate the size of your ass/ankles/whatever, it's like you're not a real woman. It's really kind of creepy, how many women cannot regularly discuss anything other than weight and food and how bad both those things are. It's depressing to listen to, so I usually don't sit around and listen to it (unless I have to, like I'm at lunch with coworkers and they start in yapping about their weight).

I don't think the chick in the video is obese. She's really freakin' tall (must be 6 ft.) and gorgeous. Yeah, she's got some extra weight around the middle, but she's not by any means gross. If you're tall, you can weigh more and it'll look better on you than if you're short. ie, 200 lbs. on a chick who's 5'10" isn't gonna look the same as on someone who's 5'3". Duh.

Also, yeah, small chick, usually small boobs. Bigger chick, bigger boobs. They're kind of a set (har har).

I read this book when it first came out, and was unimpressed by it also. The one thing that I agreed with was the idea that one could be fat and fit. As long as your blood pressure was good, cholesterol level ok, your blood sugar levels normal, why worry about being fat? I met all those requirements, so I was fat, fit and happy.

Then I hit my 40's and it all went to hell. I am now diabetic, cholesterol too high, BP is creeping up. So I guess what I am saying is everyone is fit until they ARE NOT.

So now I have to watch my carbohydrates, exercise, and take meds. I have dropped 25 pounds and need to drop a lot more. I miss that carefree fat person I was. Oh, and for the mom being counseled not to refer to her child as "chubby": we are what we are. Fat is something you can't hide and shouldn't have to feel bad about. But it isn't wise not to accept it as a health issue.

Been there, done that, now I take my glucose levels three times a day. I don't hate myself for being fat, but boy do I regret not staying away from the French fries more :-(

I beg to differ b, give me a small or big girl with some 34's and she will be granted instant access to my 401(k). Now the problem is when you are small or big and you don’t have 34's, what do you have to bring to the table other than your sparkling personality? This is a cruel world b, if you aren’t a show pony then your options might be somewhat limited. I didn’t make the rules, I just follow them.

dammitjanet - your daughter is beautiful. I'd kill to have her red hair and frankly, her body. Tell her I said that.

I fall into the obese category, I've lost 100lbs but still have at least 150 to go and while I don't hate myself or think I'm unattractive, I do hate the stigma that comes with being very fat and all the worries (healthwise and others) that come along with it as well.

I do have a certain amount of sympathy for girls who are naturally thin but until you have to worry about things like breaking a chair when you sit in it, fitting into an airplane seat or squeezing your fat ass into a booth at a nice restaurant, or going through high school listening to taunts of thunder thighs and teeange boys pretending there was an earthquake everytime you walked down the hallway I'll always have more sympathy for the fat girls.

I get why dammitjanet's daughter can fall into a bit of depression from time to time, my high school years were so fucking horrid I'm surprised I didn't kill myself or someone else.

But seriously, I have no one to blame but myself for it; while genetics do play a role in my size I mostly got this fat because I don't know when to step away from the fucking feed trough.

Luckily I was blessed with high self-esteem, even in the high school years, and luckily I married someone who thinks I'm hot whether I'm fat or skinny. That also went a long way towards self acceptance.

Also - how wrong is it that I got a little thrill when I read that Pookie digs the fat girls? I'm disturbed aren't I?

I would like the mediacal community to take a bit of a kick in the ass for this too. Often I hear about the Body Mass Index being used to determine whether your obese and to what degree. Just for shits and giggles I input my numbers from grade 10 (5'5" & 175 lbs.) and I was considered obese. I had a 5% body fat.

Unfortunately these types of tests don't account for variables. In order to get my BMI to normal I would have to lose 70lbs. That just isn't going to happen with out the help of an eating disorder and the surgical removal of muscle and bone. Do I need to lose weight? Absolutely, but I would much rather be happy than considered normal.

Ahem *medical

I picked up this book a few years ago--I'm definitely into the idea of health at every size. I absolutely believe that a person can be healthy and fat just like they can be healthy and thin. People can talk about how easy it is to lose weight, and if you're fat you're not doing everything that you could be--but it is never that simple. Do thin people always know why they're thin? Not usually--just like with other body types, it's a multi-determined thing. And believe me, I've seen thin people who have awful eating habits, don't exercise, and they're still thin. It is never as simple as people claim it is.

As someone who's been on both sides of the weight fence--I was relatively fat until I inexplicably lost weight several years ago--I was interested in reading about Wendy's experience. And I think it's interesting that Tyburn found this as a self-help book--in the bookstore where I found it, it was in the biography section, which might be more appropriate. I appreciated her frank discussion of her experience. There's definitely a call for activism and sometimes that "you go, girl!" bent, but every now and then you'd find this undercurrent of self-deprecation and loathing, and it made me sad because so many women feel this way already for not measuring up. For example, she writes that we shouldn't compare ourselves to supermodels because they are basically freak genetic cases, and we are "garbage bags on the highway", or something like that. And while models may have won the genetic jackpot, so to speak, I don't think that admitting this has to cost us our own self-esteem.

Pooks, I'm 5' 3" and about 140. Does that count?

Dammitjanet - you're a good mother. Don't beat up on yourself. You're trying to do right by your daughter and you're acknowledging the uphill battle she could have as a "big girl" if you don't intervene and make her feel loved and beautiful.

Excuse me Sam, but me and Janet need some alone time. Thank you for your concern, but I’ll take it from here.

I once weighed in at 275 pounds. I went on a diet (thank you Dr. Atkins for such a wonderful diet. Baconnn!) and lost a lot of weight very quickly - so much so that people thought I was doing meth( the Jenny Crank diet).I just knew that I would get a girlfriend now that I had lost the pounds. I am considered a handsome guy by all of my platonic girlfriends. However, I am still searching. I learned that looking good is not all it takes(duh, right?). I still have self esteem issues that keep me down. I can't look in the mirror without seeing ugly staring back at me. I have a decent sense of humor, good looks, and am a bobcat in the sack. All of this according to others. But I was the child of an overweight mother and she projected all of her insecurities on to me. She was fat and miserable as a child and didn't want the same thing for me. So, naturally,she helped me by calling me a fat,lazy, pig all of the time. This was very helpful and it worked. I was shamed into becoming a fit,well adjusted person. Can't you tell?

And while models may have won the genetic jackpot, so to speak, I don't think that admitting this has to cost us our own self-esteem.

Hear, hear. As with so many lightning rod issues, the conversation is far more complex than books like this allow. People born into supportive parental situations also have "won the lottery," but that's doesn't have to be the end of the story for the less fortunate kids.

I'm a larger person and maintain that large folk should be treated just like anyone else. Regardless of whether one finds a specific larger person sexually attractive, the ethical issue is the same as it is with every other human: How well you treat a person, regardless of appearance or physical traits, reveals your character. That goes both ways, of course -- enormous people have an impact on the rest of us, whether it's taking up two airline seats or driving up insurance premiums with needless health problems. These issues need to be handled honestly, without stereotypes, but ignoring them isn't fair to everyone else.

I remain concerned at the feel-good notions of "fat can be fit" and "I can't help it." BMI is often bullshit, it's true, but the most sensitive, understanding doctor in the world will tell you that being overweight dramatically increases your risk for many diseases and undesirable medical conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and other joint pain, cancer, and digestive problems. Fat-and-young ain't so bad, but gravity will eventually have its way with you. Extra weight is the enemy of both a long life and feeling good late in life. It's just plain medical science.

Science also dictates that if one consumes fewer calories than are burned, one will weigh less. I'm overweight, and it's hard to lose those pounds, but I'm not going to delude myself about why I'm larger than average -- I don't want the pain and irritation of consuming fewer calories than I burn in order to weigh less. It's on me. Those "glandular" conditions and metabolic issues are the exception, not the rule. As a culture, we're fat because we can be, not because someone imposed it on us. Self-esteem means owning our faults as well as our attributes.

Ok, fine, not cleavage. Boobs in a shirt! And spelling cleavage right this time! And gratuitous!

Not that I pay attention to health reasons now, either. I have an absolute crap diet and drink too much. And don't exercise anymore. Oh, those glorious months when I worked out 6 days a week...

Oh right, on topicness. I liked the review, and actually enjoyed the video. I usually don't care too much for "I'm fine with being fat" stuff, for the same reasons you listed. Plus, I usually just prefer not to talk about weight or diet with people.

Pookie, that was heinous and morally reprehensible, but brilliant and almost certainly true. I am nominating you for EE next week, whether you want it or not.

A young person has enough body anxieties without being confronted with the specter of diseases that are at most remote threats to a teen.

That's a good point. And I understand how it can be hard for parents, although it's not like there were any slings and arrows for me in this case. Looking back, I actually wasn't at all fat-maybe 5 pounds overweight-so pretty much the only arrows I got came from my parents. And I was reasonably active-I did gymnastics for years, and was in a bunch of sports teams. They still decided I needed a personal trainer, though. Their paranoia made me start hiding my eating and hating my body, which made me gain weight.

OK, ISSUES OVER. This is why I'm never going to write a self-help book-the world doesn't need a window into my broken psyche.

So Slash, I take your statement to mean that you don’t believe I’m out fuckin’?

Whoa Whoa Whoa rikki, what, are you some sort of comedian or something?

Poopie that's retarded. Do you really think because some woman here lets you talk dirty to them or argue with them that means they give a damn about you? They're probably humoring you while doing more important shit while you're whacking off to your own words on the computer screen.

Echo'd: dammitjanet, your daughter is beautiful. So is the video woman.

WAH! I want boobs too!

Okay,Pookie,I can't speak slowly and condescendingly to you in print,so I'll advise you to read this very slowly. I suspect that won't be a problem for you.George Clooney refers to himself as a bobcat in the sack. That's where I got the line,Pookie(Pookie? You name yourself after Garfield's fuck-doll?). When I say "platonic girlfriends" I mean to say "Girls I fuck with no emotional involvement". You seem to have mistaken my rant on bad mothering as a cry for help with the ladies. If I ever need advice on how to smoke dope as a prelude to jerking off to faceless women I "meet" on the internet, then I will most certainly address you. Untill that unlikely day arrives I would suggest that you start jerking off with the other hand-it almost feels like someone else is touching you there. There,now we've both given each other profound insights that will last for a lifetime.

dammitjanet, and anyone else who might be interested and also still checking this thread...

As well as the videos I mentioned, I highly recommend Such a Pretty Face, edited by Lee Martindale. If your daughter is the reading type who enjoys or at least tolerates fantasy, this is a wonderful volume, described as "Tales of power and abundance that prove that heroes and heroines come in all shapes and sizes." It is all fat-positive fantasy, and some of the stories in it are beautiful or hilarious or moving (though I'll admit some are also weak).

Tragically, the publisher, Meisha Merlin, has gone under, but used copies are still available on Amazon.

Where can I find the chick in the video? I'd like to add her to my ever increasing (ha!) collection of fat friends. Fat chicks are hilarious, bitchy and can drink skinny chicks under the table. I know this because I used to be one, then I lost 35 pounds and now I have to cut my whiskey with coke or I black out and my fat friends talk me into doing things I shouldn't, so that they can take pictures that will humiliate me.

I'm still bitchy and hilarious though.

Ally, sometimes there's a lot more that goes into someone's body type than how much they eat and exercise.

I have a thyroid imbalance that has been diagnosed so far by two separate doctors using two separate labs, as well as other possible problems stemming from all kinds of exciting things that happened to me both before and immediately after I was born (some 12 weeks premature). My body is broken...it doesn't work the way a normal body does when it comes to the gaining and losing of weight. Could I be thinner? Yes. But the measures required to achieve that would be drastic and far more likely to damage my health than carrying the extra weight, and considering all of the extra health problems that usually go along with my situation, I actually consider myself really damned lucky.

I've got a choice. I can listen to folks like you, who hurl such acid over stereotypes, assumption, and blind hate, or I can accept the things I cannot change and go on about my life.

I find I'm much happier taking the lovely Joy Nash's advice.

*chuckle*

Tyburn I will find that for my daughter. Thanks for your help!

saying you are "healthy" but "fat" is like saying "Im not black, Im african american"..

??!???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I'm hungry, would you mind if I eat the creamy center?

But I have boobs! WHY ISN'T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT MY BOOBS ANYMORE?

*slinks off to play with boobs*

(sad, neglected boobs)