Geneticists Seek Obesity Clues on Islands

MALCOLM RITTER

Associated Press


On the Pacific island of Kosrae, scientists hope to find answers to
one of the biggest mysteries about obesity: What genes nudge some
people toward getting fat?

Many studies indicate genes influence weight, although they don't
control it completely. But identifying the responsible genes is
difficult, because in most cases many genes work together to promote
obesity, each exerting such a small effect that it's hard to detect.

So researchers have turned to confined populations that are prone to
obesity. The idea is that since such a group draws its genes from a
relatively restricted gene pool, the genetic variants responsible for
obesity should be easier to find.

By identifying such variants, scientists hope to get a better
understanding of the biological causes of obesity in the general
population. That in turn could lead to better treatments, or at least
a way to identify people at risk of becoming obese so that they could
take preventive steps.

On Kosrae, scientists might also be able to study the other side of
the coin: When calories are cheap and readily available, are there
gene variants that help keep some people lean?

That's one interest of Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, a Howard Hughes Medical
Institute investigator at Rockefeller University in New York, who
with colleagues Dr. Marcus Stoffel and Dr. Jan Breslow has been
studying the people of Kosrae for a decade.

In fact, Friedman believes that obesity-promoting and leanness-
promoting genetic variants in today's residents of Kosrae - and
elsewhere - might be traceable to what their ancestors were
experiencing thousands of years ago.

His argument builds on the so-called "thrifty gene hypothesis"
proposed in the early 1960s. That hypothesis suggested that in an
environment prone to famines, hunter-gatherers would gain an
advantage if their genes predisposed them to obesity. That way, they
could save up calories to survive food shortages.

Since people with these "thrifty genes" would be more likely to
survive famines, those genes would be passed on to modern-day
descendants.

But in an environment of plentiful food and little risk of
starvation, thrifty genes could be a liability. Friedman suggests
that could have been the situation for ancient populations in the
Fertile Crescent of the Middle East.

Indeed, Fertile Crescent people would benefit from gene variants that
would encourage them to resist obesity despite the availability of
food, he argues. And presumably, those variants would still persist
today alongside the obesity-promoting variants from humankind's
hunter-gatherer legacy.

Could it be, Friedman asks, that obese people carry the "hunter-
gatherer" genes and lean people carry "Fertile Crescent" genes?

He's studying Kosrae to test that theory. There, about half the
adults are obese, and another 30 percent are overweight.

Residents of the island were living as hunter-gatherers when first
sighted by Westerners in the 1800s, he said. Even then, some
explorers reported seeing women who had a tendency to be fat, but the
obesity rate was nothing like today.

Later, islanders intermarried with visiting whalers who settled
there. So today's population draws genes from its native pool and the
outsiders. But it wasn't until after World War II and the
introduction of a Western diet, Friedman says, that being overweight
became the norm.

Friedman and colleagues plan to test the possibility that obese
residents tend to carry native Micronesian gene variants while the
lean inhabitants tend to carry Caucasian variants of the same genes.

Working with local health authorities, the scientists have built up a
huge family tree and DNA bank involving thousands of people on the
island - most of its adults. And the hunt for genes is under way.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/8628250.htm?1c

Obesity Surgery Leaves Many in Misery

With her hair falling out, skin flaking, muscles wasted and frequent
attacks of diarrhea and vomiting, Linda Culpepper was admitted to the
hospital and immediately fed intravenously. Her diagnosis was a
condition called life-threatening malnutrition, caused by
complications from a past weight-loss surgery, which involved closing
a majority of her stomach and shortening her small intestine.
The increasing numbers of obese people have driven up the rates for
weight-loss surgeries.

Soaring Weight-Loss Operation Statistics:

In the United States, 20,000 weight-loss operations were performed in
1995
In 2003, 103,000 were performed
This year, 144,00 are predicted to be performed
Researchers expressed their concerns over the operations being
performed on children and teenagers and the increasing number of
doctors encouraging their patients to pack on more pounds, so they
could qualify for the surgery. Researchers also noted one of the
biggest issues surrounded the number of doctors who were not properly
trained and performing the surgeries.

Because of the high risks and increased costs, some insurers made the
decision to stop covering the operations. The average cost of the
surgery is $30,000, however that cost could rise if serious
complications surfaced during the surgery.

Also, due to the drastic changes in the digestive system, most
patients required heavy counseling on how to eat properly and which
vitamins to take in order to avoid malnutrition or gaining the weight
back.

Reported Risks of the Surgery:

Bleeding
Blood clots
Bowel obstructions
Hernias
Severe infections caused from leaks in the abdomen area where the
stomach and small intestines had been cut open and sealed or
reconnected
Research showed that almost 30 percent of the people who had
undergone the surgery experienced nutritional deficiencies that led
to health conditions such as anemia and bone loss.

Participants of a study included 66,000 obese people, 3,328 of that
number had bariatric surgery during the years of 1987 to 2001. The
study revealed that 30 days following the surgery, the death rate
reached 1.9 percent.

It was also discovered that those who did survive the surgery lived
longer than the severely obese people who did not have the surgery.

Experts stated that most people believed the gastric bypass surgery
was the solution to their weight-loss problems, however doctors
warned patients who did not practice self-control that they would
gain back all the weight in the next 20 years.

http://www.mercola.com/2004/may/19/obesity_surgery.htm

Kids Fight The Fat: Breast-Feeding Prevents Obesity

Pediatricians: Set Healthy Patterns Early

POSTED: 3:06 pm EDT May 17, 2004
UPDATED: 3:45 pm EDT May 17, 2004

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. -- Some pediatricians say what and how much you
feed a child in the first few months can set a pattern for life and
prevent obesity.

More and more health officials say breast milk gives the best
nutrition for infants.

Mother Valerie Butler knew breast-feeding would be an incredible
bonding experience between her and her baby, David.

"It made me feel close to my baby. I feel I know my baby well,"
Butler said.

A nurse by trade, Butler said she knew there were benefits to breast-
feeding, and she saw them firsthand after breast-feeding her first
child, Erin, for just over a year.

"She's maintained a healthy growth curve and is proportionate in
height to weight, which is the most important thing," Butler said.

It was an easy decision when David was born.

Pediatricians said infants who are breast-fed are not only healthier
than bottle-fed babies, but they also have a lower chance of becoming
overweight.

Some studies have shown there is 40 percent less obesity in infants
who breast-feed for longer than six months.

"It also gets mom back to prenatal weight faster," Dr. Pat Colander
said.

That makes sense to Butler, who relies on what she calls "natural
portion control."

"When you breast-feed you don't know how much they eat," she
said. "It's their first lesson in eating until they are full and then
stopping."

"Breast-fed babies tend to eat less than formula-fed babies,"
Colander said, "and have a leaner weight at 1 year of age than
formula-fed babies."

Breast milk changes constantly to meet the nutritional needs of a
growing baby.

Doctors say even one feeding makes a difference, so new moms are
encouraged to give it a try.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding for the
first year of a child's life.

New moms can get extra help and guidance through the La Leche League,
a group founded to give information and encouragement to all mothers
who want to breast-feed their babies.

http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/health/3314676/detail.html

ElegantPlus.com (elegantly_yours02@...) has sent the
following story to you from seattlepi.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Prescription for obesity -- it could be your pills
The pills millions of people take every day for diabetes,
clinical depression, high blood pressure and other illnesses are
small, weigh almost nothing and carry few calories.

* Read the full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/173839_medicine18.html

---------------------------------------------------------------
Keep track of what's happening around the Northwest at
http://www.seattlepi.com -- updated all day and as news breaks.

Interest in obesity soars by 294% in five years; education and
litigation important influencers in obesity debate in US; leading
brands top global attention

   Echo Research, leaders in brand reputation and analysis, today
launched its global report on "Obesity in the Public Eye" in Geneva
on the occasion of the WHO World Health Assembly. Drawing on some
9,000 media items published worldwide, Echo's research shows how the
debate on obesity has soared 294% in five years.

Geneva, Switzerland (PRWEB) May 21, 2004 -— Echo Research, leaders in
brand reputation and analysis, today launched its global report
on "Obesity in the Public Eye" in Geneva on the occasion of the WHO
World Health Assembly. Drawing on some 9,000 media items published
worldwide, Echo's research shows how the debate on obesity has soared
294% in five years.

Presented at the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF)'s
Partnership workshop, a private gathering of leading European and
American companies from all sectors, Echo's research found that
obesity is now firmly ranked alongside diabetes and cancer as a life
threatening issue in today's society the world over. The research
highlighted that the causes and the solutions put forward by leading
commentators are either too one-sided or not comprehensive enough to
battle the problem effectively.

Media in all regions focused on the worrying increase and impact of
the disorder among children, with schools perceived as playing a key
role in changing nutritional habits and behaviour.

However, messages and opinion formers varied significantly according
to both political and social contexts:
* The debate is highly politicised in the UK, with the Government
leading calls for regulation on advertising, promotion, vending
machines and food labeling.
* In the USA, education is regarded as key but so too, in a land
where class actions take over from individual responsibility,
litigation is viewed as an essential tool to curb the obesity trend.
* By contrast, in France with its heavy focus on pharmaceutical
cures, medication is seen as a useful solution.

The media is apportioning much blame, with highly visible global
brand names being at the center of the problem as well as offering
potential solutions. Individuals' responsibilities seem to be a
particularly difficult concept to get across.

Marianne Eisenmann, Managing Director of Echo Research in North
America, said: "educational bodies, companies, health professionals
and policy-makers will have to engage in a major concerted effort to
better inform the debate and press home messages on responsibilities
and prevention if the public is to be clear about how to tackle a
very real, and growing, problem."

Methodology
The research was conducted by Echo Research as a collaborating
partner with the IBFL and HEAL Global Partnership. Echo analysed some
9,000 news items from Asia Pacific, France, the UK and the USA
supplied by Factiva and published between April 2003 and March 2004.
Articles appeared in daily, business and consumer magazines.

Background
Echo Research Group, global leaders in brand and reputation analysis
and communications research, works to help organizations measure how
they are perceived among different stakeholder groups and identify
emerging issues to reputation. With 165 analysts, Echo has offices in
London, Brussels, Paris, Stockholm and New York and its world-class
clients include a quarter of the FTSE and Fortune 100. Echo works
across a number of industry sectors, with particular expertise in
Consumer, Financial Services, Health, IT, Telecommunications, Media,
Professional Services, Public Sector and NGOs. More information and
resources can be found at WWW.echoresearch.com

For further information, please contact:
Marianne Eisenmann
Managing Director North America
Echo Research Inc.
646 495 5416,
cell 781 492 5972
e-mail: MarianneE@...

Christophe Guibeleguiet
Research Director
44483 413637
mobile: 44 7968 828290
e-mail: ChristopheG@...

Nigel Middlemiss
CSR Practice Director
44 483 413650
mobile: 44 7771 636028
e-mail: NigelM@...


http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/5/emw127780.htm

Ministers want ban on junk food ads aimed at children
By Rosemary Bennett, Deputy Political Editor



MINISTERS are to seek a voluntary ban on the advertising of junk food
to children in an attempt to defuse a government dispute over
tackling obesity in Britain.
They also hope that the move will help to head off criticism from a
committee of MPs, which will this week criticise the Government for
doing too little to stem the rising levels of obesity.



The cross-party Parliamentary Health Committee has made a year-long
study of the issue and will tell ministers in their report on
Thursday that they have been too slow to tackle the nation's
unhealthy lifestyle.

Efforts made by individual ministers to address obesity have been
hampered by a lack of "joined up" government, they will say.

Despite having had a Public Health Minister in place since 1997, the
Government has only recently started to take the whole issue of diet
and fitness seriously, and is divided over what action to take.

Pre-empting the attack from the MPs, John Reid, the Health Secretary,
has won backing for a new Cabinet committee to be set up specifically
to address the question of obesity. He will chair the committee,
which will bring together ministers from the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport, Transport, Education and Local Government, who all
have responsibilities in this area.

The new Cabinet committee will also seek to try to formalise plans on
the advertising of junk food.

Dr Reid believes in giving adults an "informed choice" over what they
eat by making sure they have as much information as the they need to
make a proper decision over their diet.

However, he feels that children are a different case and that there
is a strong argument for limiting the amount of television
advertising for crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks they are subjected to
during peak viewing hours.

Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, who is responsible for the
advertising industry, is less convinced that banning advertisements
will achieve a step change in children's eating habits. She believes
the answer lies in getting children to exercise more, although that
would be more costly to the Government in terms of setting up sports
facilities and training adults to oversee games and exercise classes.
However, a voluntary ban negotiated with the advertising industry is
now being discussed as a compromise. Officials say that they would
prefer to explore what could be done without resort to new
legislation and regulation.

"The advertising industry is extremely responsible and has responded
well in the past to suggestions from the Government," one Whitehall
official said. "It makes sense to see what can be agreed on
voluntarily without resorting to the law."

The Food Standards Agency is conducting a study into the advertising
of junk food; Of- com, the new media regulator, is consulting on
changes to the code of conduct that governs the advertising industry.

These two studies will feed into the White Paper.

Ministers are also expected to include proposals for more
comprehensive food labelling in the document. They have said the
response of the food industry to a request to cut the levels of salt,
sugar and fat have been disappointing.

Manufacturers have been told that they may soon have to label pre-
prepared food "high in salt" as a warning to consumers.

The Government's final verdict on advertising junk food is unlikely
to be made public until it publishes a White Paper on public health
in the summer.

Ministers do not intend to challenge the health committee over its
conclusions that it has been slow to act on obesity. They will
acknowledge that the first term was taken up with reducing waiting
lists for operations and NHS reforms.

However, fresh impetus has been given to public health by the
Treasury's funding report on the NHS conducted by Derek Wanless, a
former banker.

He has emphasised the importance of encouraging healthier lifestyles
for the funding of the NHS.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8126-1121568,00.html

Guest Viewpoint: All this yammering about obesity a big, fat lie

By Tova Stabin


I surely support efforts to ensure that children eat healthy food and
spend less time in front of screens and more actively playing. I am
afraid, however, of the growing belief that so-called obesity,
supposedly caused by overeating and lack of exercise, is the problem
we must solve to make our children healthy and happy.

As I often tell my young son, people come in different sizes and
shapes.

More than 300 studies since the late 1960s have shown that fat people
have exactly the same range of eating patterns as thin people: the
same variety of amounts eaten, the same times of day eaten, the same
types and kinds of foods eaten, the same reasons given for eating,
etc. In not one study could fat people or thin people be
differentiated by what, how much, when or why they ate.

A study in the Canadian Journal of Public Health explains, "When food
intakes of obese individuals were accurately assessed and compared
with people of normal weights, the intakes were identical. There are
thin people who eat excessively ... and there are fat people who eat
too much. Likewise, there are thin people and fat people who have
small appetites."

Correlations between being fat and diseases are, at best,
contradictory and confusing. As reported in the British Medical
Journal, re- searchers were trying to show a positive correlation
between high calorie intakes, fatness and diabetes, but were
surprised to find fatness and high levels of blood sugar correlated
with below-average calorie intakes.

What I find scary is the multibillion dollar diet industry (one study
estimates that Americans spend an average of $109 million on dieting
and diet-related products each day). The diet industry feeds off
inaccurate ideas about correlations between fat and health.

Constant dieting is a much more significant health risk than so-
called "obesity." Vivian Mayer, in "The Questions People Ask,"
summarizes numerous medical studies as saying that, "Repeated dieting
has been shown to cause arteriosclerosis in rats and is generally
regarded as increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes in
humans. Weight loss involves destruction of protein as well as fat
tissue, and so duplicates the tissue damage of starvation.

"Not fatness, but efforts to lose weight, have been correlated with
nutritional behaviors called `compulsive eating,' Furthermore,
dieting and social pressure to hate oneself for being fat are
conspicuously absent in the histories of fat people noted for long
life and good health."

Other studies show that in a three- to five-year period after weight
loss, 92 percent to 98 percent of everyone who loses weight will gain
it back; 90 percent will gain back more than they lost.

Chronic (and often secretive) dieting by our children, especially
girls, is a short leap to anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and related
disorders. According to the National Institute of Mental Health,
between 5 million and 10 million girls and women, along with 1
million boys and men, suffer from eating disorders. Estimates suggest
as many as 15 percent of young women adopt unhealthy attitudes and
behaviors about food.

There are studies that estimate that 40 percent of first-, second-
and third-grade girls want to be thinner! Eighty percent of 10-year-
olds are worried they will become fat. Recently, there has been an
increase in boys with eating disorders.

Since most people are secretive about these behaviors, statistics may
be much higher than reported. Ironically, children and adults with
these disorders often get support and praise for losing so much
weight; tragically, their eating disorders can be undiscovered until
they are severe (with effects that can include hospitalization and
death).

For children and adults who may not fit contemporary standards of
thinness, for those who are "naturally" thin but destroy their health
with junk food and lack of exercise, and everyone in between, the
strict association of body size with eating, exercise and health can
be dangerous - indeed, sometimes fatal. To add more fuel by
ostracizing children perceived as above "normal" weight is cruel, as
well as unhealthy for everyone.

Encourage your children to enjoy eating; have a meal together; grow a
garden; avoid junk food; shut off the TV or computer; dance around
the house; go to the park and play ball; join a sports team or dance
group. Then tell them their bodies are beautiful no matter what their
size or shape. That will make for healthy bodies for all our children.

Tova Stabin is a free-lance writer, teacher and librarian. She was a
medical research librarian in the University of Washington's School
of Public Health for 13 years.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/24/ed.col.stabin.0524.html

Obesity May Affect Accuracy of Mammography
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 3 P.M. (CT), MONDAY, MAY 24, 2004

Obesity May Affect Accuracy of Mammography

CHICAGO – Newswise — Women who are overweight or obese are more
likely to receive a false-positive result on mammography screenings
than normal weight and underweight women, according to an article in
the May 24 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the
JAMA/Archives journals.

According to information in the article, obese postmenopausal women
have an increased risk of breast cancer compared with postmenopausal
women of normal weight, and are often diagnosed with later stages of
breast cancer. It has been hypothesized that women with larger
breasts may be less able to feel breast lumps, making it more likely
that once diagnosed, their breast cancers will be in later stages,
the article states. However, the influence of obesity on mammography
screenings has not been well studied.

Joann G. Elmore, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington School
of Medicine, Seattle, and colleagues investigated the relationship
between obesity and mammographic accuracy.

The researchers analyzed 100,622 screening mammographies performed on
members of a non-profit health plan. Body mass index (BMI, weight in
kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) was assessed and
mammography screening accuracy was determined. Participants were
categorized based on their BMIs: underweight or normal weight, BMI of
less than 25; overweight, BMI of 25 to 29; obesity class I, BMI of 30
to 34; and obesity classes II to III, BMI of 35 or higher.

The researchers found that "Compared with underweight or normal
weight women, overweight and obese women were more likely to be
recalled for additional tests after adjusting … for age and breast
density." Overweight women were 17 percent more likely to be
recalled, women in the obese category I group were 27 percent more
likely to be recalled, and women in the obese category II and III
groups were 31 percent more likely to be recalled.

"A woman's weight may influence the accuracy of screening mammography
in several important ways," write the authors. "Obese women had more
than a 20 percent increased risk of having a false-positive mammogram
result compared with underweight and normal weight women. We did not
find statistically significant improvements in sensitivity in obese
women to counter this increase in false-positive rates. Understanding
the quality of mammography among obese women is important, especially
since the American population is becoming more obese and obesity is a
modifiable risk factor," the researchers write.

(Arch Intern Med. 2004;164: 1140-1148. Available post-embargo at
http://archinternmed.com)
Editor's Note: This project was supported by a Public Health Service
Grant (Dr. Elmore) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality and the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of
Health, Department of Health and Human Services, and a National
Cancer Institute Surveillance grant (Dr. Taplin).

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/505123/

World Health Organisation throws its weight behind obesity strategy
PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
PM - Monday, 24 May , 2004  18:50:00
Reporter: Tanya Nolan
MARK COLVIN: The World Health Organisation has decided to endorse a
global strategy against obesity, but why has it taken so long?

After two years of negotiation, WHO member states endorsed
the 'Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health', at their
annual assembly in Geneva over the weekend.

It addresses the factors responsible for the growing burden of
diseases linked to poor health and lack of exercise, such as
cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes and some cancers.

These now account for around 60 per cent of 56-and-a-half-million
deaths each year which are deemed to be preventable.

Doctor Tim Gill is the Asia-Pacific regional coordinator for the
International Obesity Task Force, which collaborates with the WHO on
obesity issues. He's been telling Tanya Nolan that he's concerned by
the efforts of some sugar-producing countries, including Australia,
to try and limit the scope of the strategy.

TIM GILL: Well, certainly, this is a major initiative and it's really
pleasing to see the WHO have been able to push it through. There was
an enormous amount of resistance from vested interest groups to this
proposal.

But ultimately, I think it was a situation of head in the sand
because everyone was well aware that the problem of chronic disease
was one which was going to overwhelm the world, and that ultimately
there's very strong evidence of the association between various
dietary patterns and lack of physical activity in the development of
these chronic diseases.

TANYA NOLAN: Well obviously those who were looking to protect their
interests most conscientiously were the sugar-producing countries.

There was also a submission put by Australia on this very issue, and
reading the submission, Australia asks that the WHO use less
prescriptive language in the strategy when it comes to sugar; rather
than limiting sugar intake, that they use the term 'moderate
consumption of sugar.'

Does that concern you?

TIM GILL: It certainly concerns me. I mean, it rather disappoints me
that Australia would in some way be party to an attempt to undermine
in language at least, the efforts of WHO to tackle the problem of
chronic disease across the world.

They would probably represent this as a very minor issue in which
they're just attempting to be more scientifically accurate, but the
WHO report on which the global strategy was based went through
numerous reviews, and the evidence is undoubtedly robust.

You know, it might seem just like a small change in wording, but it
does have ramifications in how intense you are in pursuing that
particular policy, and I think it came through very clearly that
excess sugar intake has contributed to an increase in chronic disease
in developing countries, particularly when we take into consideration
soft drink consumption.

TANYA NOLAN: Well, many people may be surprised to know that
overeating and poor habits are replacing malnutrition as the major
health problems facing developing countries. But you can actually
attest to that, can't you?

TIM GILL: Oh, certainly. It actually comes as a huge shock to the
World Health Organisation themselves. The rate at which it's
occurring is probably the most alarming factor.

You know, the epidemics of diabetes and cardiovascular disease which
have taken four or five decades to develop in Australia and the US
and the UK, they're coming to a peak in countries such as China
within a space of 10 years so that urban China now has the same level
of diabetes and the same level of overweight and obesity in children,
as does Australia, and that is really alarming.

TANYA NOLAN: But do you think that a motherhood statement effectively
asking people to limit their intakes of fats and salts and
potentially moderate their consumption of sugars is going to be
enough?

TIM GILL: Oh no, no, no, certainly, and WHO are not saying this as
well. I mean, what they wanted was some agreement on a blueprint on
how to deal with this at a global level, because this is a global
problem.

Up 'til now, a lot of countries have seen… have had no consideration
about what they've traded with other countries and the impact that
it's having on their health status, so that the fact that the US and
even Australia can trade a lot of fats and oils to countries, which
is contributing to their excess energy intake and their increase in
diabetes, and the fact that there are now global, or multinational
companies that produce a lot of the world's food, has meant that
decisions will need to be made at a more global level about what food
is produced, how it's turned into food products and what things are
added to it, and most importantly how it's marketed and how it's
traded.

MARK COLVIN: Doctor Tim Gill, the Asia-Pacific regional coordinator
for the International Obesity Task Force.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1114884.htm

Big girls don't cry
FatGirl Speaks festival celebrates the plus-size
  By DAWN TAYLOR     Issue date: Tue, May 4, 2004
The Tribune
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
    People in America are fat. Every organization devoted to studying
obesity — and there are many — comes up with a different estimate of
just how many people are packing on extra pounds. Most figures,
though, fall in line with those of the North American Association for
the Study of Obesity, which classifies 64 percent of Americans
as "overweight or obese."
    On television, such numbers are usually followed by a description
of obesity as an "epidemic," accompanied by unflattering footage of
chubby people walking around a mall eating ice cream. The message is
clear: Despite the fact that most of us are fat, it's unacceptable.
It's wrong and dangerous and ugly.
    Not everyone, however, agrees that fat people should be miserable
about their size.
    "I had an idea one night," says graphic designer Stacy Bias. "I
thought: `You know what would be really cool? If I could feel good
about myself for a day. That'd be really nice!' "
    Because of various life stresses, Bias had gained a lot of weight.
And looking around at her thin, fit friends — P.E. teachers and
marathon runners — she was dismayed by their profound dissatisfaction
with their own bodies.
    "I thought, `Oh, my God, these women hate themselves,' " she
recalls. "I felt like, it's not OK for them to say that they feel fat
and they hate their bodies, because what does that say about me? That
I have no right to feel any sense of worth about myself! And then I
got really mad."
    So last year Bias put out a call to friends, acquaintances and
local women's groups, creating FatGirl Speaks, a "celebration of
size, self and sexuality." The event featured performances by
gleefully hefty performers, a large-size fashion show and workshops
focusing on size acceptance.
    Working on a shoestring budget, Bias didn't expect much more than
a good time from the event and admits that she was braced for a small
turnout.
    "We figured if a hundred people showed up, what a success," she
recalls. "But the day of the show people kept coming and coming — we
reached capacity at the Hollywood Theatre and then had to turn away a
hundred people at the door!"
    This year the daylong festival, to be held Saturday at the
Roseland Theater, has a bigger budget and a larger venue. The event
will offer a slate of workshops ranging from the political to the
health conscious (a "fit and fat" seminar) to the purely entertaining
(a class on burlesque dancing taught by Ms. DeMeanor of San
Francisco's popular Fat Bottom Revue).
    The evening hours will feature performances by poets, dancers,
musicians, the cast of BroadArts Theatre's "Fat and Sassy" show, and
a group of Portland-based cheerleaders called the Fat Action Troupe
Allstar Spirit Squad (the joke is in the acronym).
    Coming from the Bay Area is fat activist Marilyn Wann, editor
of "Fat!So?" magazine, who will teach a workshop and serve as emcee
with sex educator-activist Coyote Daze.
    "We have this superstition about weight," Wann says. "We think
that the number on the scale determines what sort of a life a person
gets to have. Whether they get to be healthy or happy, have cool
clothes or date or have sex — or get respect and equal opportunity.
We have this superstition that if you're fat you don't get any of the
goodies. It's just not true."
    Wann says that, despite its lighthearted tone, FatGirl Speaks is
part of the "fat pride revolution," encouraging people of all sizes
to question what she calls "a culture that's really toxic about
bodies and about food." Even the fashion show is a revolutionary act,
she claims.
    "Clothes are seen as a frivolous topic, but what you get to wear
says something about who you get to be," says the 270-pound writer,
who once appeared on NBC's "Tonight Show" as part of a synchronized
swim team called the Padded Lilies.
    "For a quarter-century of my life, I refused to wear shorts or
sleeveless things because I felt like the world would target me with
even more hatred if I exposed my fat parts," she says. "It's been
truly liberating to play dress-up and wear incredible things."
    Attendees of last year's event enthusiastically describe FatGirl
Speaks as "empowering," with the focus on fun.
    "It was great to be a part of such a groundbreaking event for fat
positivity," says Marie Fleischmann, who will return this year as a
volunteer. "Watching all those women strutting proudly and looking so
fabulous was a sight to behold."
    The goal of FatGirl Speaks, Bias and Wann say, is for women of all
sizes to feel good in their own skin, and celebrate size diversity
with joy and humor.
    "In the '60s there was a piece of graffiti on a wall in my
neighborhood. It had a raised fist and it said, `Black is
beautiful,' " Wann remembers. "How stupid that you should even have
to say that. So in my work I say, `Fat is beautiful,' and it's just
as ridiculous that we even have to point that out."

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=24167

Girls dieting younger
Survey calls for warnings in elementary school
1 in 3 pre-adolescents studied looking to get thin


ELAINE CAREY
MEDICAL REPORTER

Close to one in three pre-adolescent girls is trying to lose weight
and one in 10 of them shows symptoms of an eating disorder, according
to a new study.

A small number of the 10- to 14-year-old girls surveyed were already
involved in binge eating and vomiting or extreme dieting, even though
almost all the girls were of normal weight, says the study, published
today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

By 14, more than half of girls want to be thinner and 59 per cent are
afraid of being overweight, says the survey of 2,279 girls in 42
schools in southern Ontario from 1993 to 2003.

"What we used to see in adolescents, we're now seeing in young
children," said Gail McVey, lead researcher of the study.

"The potential negative health outcomes associated with dieting and
disordered eating stress the need for primary prevention efforts to
begin at the elementary school level," the study says.


High school is too late to get the message out because by then, one
in four teens is experiencing at least one symptom of an eating
disorder and need more specific interventions to stop it, McVey said.

The study follows the release of a body image study package prepared
for Grades 1 to 8 last week by the Ontario Teachers' Federation,
based on research that found children as young as 4 want to be thin.

The federation says teachers can incorporate themes from the package
in several parts of the curriculum including the arts, physical
education and health.

"Kids in kindergarten when asked about body image are talking in
terms of whether they're fat or not," said federation president Emily
Noble. "Ten years ago, this wasn't an issue for teachers."

Their study package was developed because "teachers were coming to us
and telling us younger kids are coming to school increasingly
preoccupied with their bodies," she said.

"Parents were also asking for help."

The grades 1 to 3 themes will emphasize accepting diverse bodies; the
theme in grades 3 to 6 is promoting body acceptance and finding ways
to resist harassment over body size; and grades 7 and 8 lessons
question adherence to body norms.

As girls enter puberty, they go through stresses that bring on body
image concerns that can lead to dieting, McVey said in an interview.

"All you have to do is look at some of the images of girls and women
in the media to see why," she said. "There is one body portrayed as
ideal but when you look at kids, they come in different weights and
sizes."

Other research has shown dieting actually leads to weight gain, bouts
of overeating and losing control over eating, said McVey, who is also
director of the Ontario Community Outreach Program for Eating
Disorders.

The dieting problems come at the same time as obesity is becoming an
epidemic among children and teenagers.

"The messages somehow have to come together in our prevention
approaches, otherwise the public is going to get very, very
confused," she said.

Prevention efforts must stress healthy eating and active living as
well as size acceptance, she said.

"We are equally concerned about thin kids not eating well and not
being active as we are about larger kids. If we only focus on larger
kids, it has the propensity for stigmatizing them as well as ignoring
the thin kids, and it also could lead to more dieting."

The outreach program is teaching prevention approaches to teachers
and public health officials, but family doctors also need to get
involved in getting the message out, the study says.

"I'm trying to drum up business for family physicians because they
typically don't come out for training," McVey said.

"Physicians see it a lot, but they don't recognize it."

Programs that work include teaching children to be critical of what
they see in the media, and strategies to boost self-esteem and
positive body image.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?
pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1084227010862&call
_pageid=968256289824&col=968705899037

The Weight Of Hatred
By ron yamauchi
Publish Date: 20-May-2004

A Former Fatty Looks In The Mirror And Discovers His Own Reasons To
Shed Pounds And Bigotry

Fat acceptance is one of the great issues of our time. Indeed, it may
well define our time. For, as we are constantly reminded through
huckstering diet ads and grim medical portents, the North American
waistline is rapidly expanding. Meanwhile, the language and example
of the civil-rights movement have permeated the culture. In
combination, these factors create a new front in the ongoing quest
for freedom from discrimination.

There's little doubt that fat people are an aggrieved group. In an
age when Hollywood movies have ceased presenting Germans, flamers,
Commies, and Ay-rab terrorists as their stock villains, it's still
okay to have the fat goof as a sidekick. Even the relatively
compassionate Shallow Hal featured its leading lady stuffing her face
and breaking chairs.

I remember watching David Letterman narrating a still shot of rotund
pitcher Terry Forster. Savouring each phrase, he described Forster as
a "load", a "silo", a "fat tub of goo".

Aside from its complete assholery, the striking thing about this
vitriol is how popular it was. "Fat tub of goo" was briefly a
national catch phrase, such was the hilarity to all--except to Terry
Forster, out of baseball a year later and now appearing on worst-
athletes lists despite his years as an ace reliever with a .397
lifetime hitting average.

It's easy to find jokes like this, or instant-sumo outfits, or Web
sites devoted to sidesplitting (ho-ho) inveigling against fat people.
The difficult bit to accept is that it's not just comedians, "the
media", or bad people taking shots at fat people. The bigot could be
anyone.

Someone like me.

About two years ago, I found myself in the bathroom wondering what
was going on. While the action was perfectly comprehensible
(barfing), the situation was not. At 35 years of age, I was entering
full-on bulimia. What had been an occasional flush of chips and
Smarties had become a weekly and then almost nightly occurrence.
Apart from a spinoff of dental vigilance (remembering a 1995 Georgia
Straight article by Evelyn Lau, in which she described the
dissolution of her teeth under the assault of stomach acid), bulimia
seemed like a poor habit to acquire at my age.

In retrospect, neurotic behaviour had been building up for some time.
I was a pudgy kid, but height and a certain innate meanness shielded
me from most playground nonsense. Interlocutors who pulled a "chinkie
chinkie Chinaman" ran the risk of being ventilated with craft
scissors.

Such deterrents were not deployable against family, the people one
reportedly loves.

Dave and I spent every summer and winter together. Though cousins, we
acquired many of the habits of brothers, including the ferreting out
of psychological tender spots.

One day when I was about 10, he noticed me sitting down and proceeded
to count my rolls. "Ron has four stomachs!" he declared with shock.

"Shut up, Dave," I said.

"Ron is fat. Ron is fat. Ron is fat, fat, fat!" Dave sang. "He likes
to be fat!"

Dave spent the next couple of days improving the song. The final
version was recorded on reel-to-reel machine so that "Ron is fat/He
likes to be fat!" could run on an infinite loop.

High school thinned me out enough to get back on the bullying side of
this issue. I joined in the sharing of fat jokes and the aesthetic
appraisal of fat girls. In Grade 11 French class, there was a kid
whom I used to torment with an earthquake metaphor. When he'd sit in
his chair, I'd subtly vibrate in mine.

In college, I went crazy with weights and martial arts, punishing the
flab to make it flee. It was not discouraged. From graduation (165
pounds) the weight crept upward. By 30, I was well over 200 pounds,
with the doctor warning me about high blood pressure. The advice:
lose weight.

There's a lot of this advice around. Headlines routinely advise that
fat is a drain on the economy and a killer; papers often cite the
figure of 300,000 obesity-cased deaths in the United States each
year.

This statistic merely counts the deaths of every fat person
regardless of cause, but never mind: it's used to support the common
knowledge that fat is lethal; indeed, an "epidemic".

It's true that fat can create difficulties in living. At extremely
high weights, people may develop sleep apnea or mobility
difficulties. But quality of life is not the primary cause of fat
phobia so much as a veneer of condescension over plain old
dislike. "Diet for your health" might be said; "fat tub of goo" will
be heard.

Health issues have never motivated me. It wasn't concern for
longevity that occasioned my flirtation with reverse peristalsis; it
was vanity. Every health reason--the blood pressure, family history
of heart attack, the risk of stroke and bowel cancer--merely resulted
in a cessation of visits to the doctor. Who needs that nasty talk?

The real turning point was when a business acquaintance made his
first trip to Vancouver in some years. The first thing out of his
mouth was "What happened to you?"

Months later, still seething, I had an opportunity to guest on a
local TV show, converting my alleged knowledge as an occasional film
reviewer into usable sound bites for its Oscar preview edition.

I had an envisioned a moment of enormous ego triumph, watching the
program and basking modestly in the approval of my family.

Instead, from the first glimpse of the chubby sack of shit on the
screen, the experience was agony. As though to provide a video for
the "Ron is fat" song, my face had expanded vastly. It seemed as
though I had exploded outward, forming a globular profile similar to
that of the dried pigs hanging in the back of a Chinatown butcher
shop.

Not long after, I started researching bulimia on the Internet.

Links on eating disorders led to Overcoming Overeating
(www.overcomingovereating.com/), which promotes books by Jane R.
Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter. The authors proceed from the
assumption that disordered eating is a symptom of body hatred (no
shit) and that such behaviour is always an effort at self-treatment.

The writers reject dieting, which worsens food obsessions and leads
to weight gain, not loss. Instead, people should learn to eat
intuitively and accept their size.

Until this point, I had never heard of the idea of size acceptance.
To me, the body had always been a malleable piece of plastic whose
imperfections were entirely the result of my dreadful character. The
concept of actually accepting this flawed organism was too baffling
to comprehend.

My desire for more information on this heretical notion led to the
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (naafa.org/), a
private, Sacramento, California­based organization that advocates for
better treatment of large people by employers, the medical industry,
and society in general.

My first post on the discussion board was in May 2002. At the time,
Jennifer Portnick was the grand champion of fat activism. She had
just won a landmark legal settlement from the Jazzercise fitness
chain. Despite leading several exercise classes every week, at 240
pounds Portnick was canned for want of a fit appearance. Righteously
pissed, Portnick filed a discrimination suit with the San Francisco
Human Rights Commission. Jazzercise changed its policy. Her victory
was NAAFA's top story (and is still on its home page).

This story piqued my interest. Years previously, I had investigated
claims to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and considered myself
well-versed in rights legislation.

It seemed surprising that Jazzercise had not taken a defence
of "personal suitability". Businesses frequently hire pretty girls to
wait tables or sit at reception, presumably for the viewing enjoyment
of potential clientele. Why would people expect anything different
from a workout club, which by definition caters to the
appearanceconscious? Anyone with a shred of tact or decency would not
have aired these party-pooping musings.

Confirmation of that was swift to follow my introductory, Jazzercise-
defending messages: "I now hereby declare, as far as I am concerned,
that 'Yammer' is officially a troll. He is making posts designed
deliberately to bring us down, insult us, make us feel like crap, and
generally and otherwise being a jerk."

Harsh criticism, and hard to refute. But in my self-appointed role as
Voice of Reason, I kept on questioning size acceptance. Shouldn't
healthy living result in a non-obese body? Isn't there a line between
weight that is genuinely harmful and that which is merely
cosmetically unpopular? Should children be raised in a manner that
(to the degree possible) avoids obesity and its various pitfalls? And
so on.

The nadir of that on-line experience probably came last fall, when I
blew up at the most articulate of my accusers, who likened my
questions to hate crimes. Enraged at this insult to my soi-disant
professional knowledge (and being, after all, a minority myself), I
replied to the effect that my pity for fat people was over!
Unprintable epithet to follow.

Sure, I backpeddled immediately, but I'd revealed myself.

Bigot. Hater.

Like most bigots, I thought of myself as Blind Justice, Incarnate.
But I've learned a few things since.

One is that fat activism comes from a place of great anger. To spend
any time at the sites of NAAFA, Philanthropists Helping Advance True
Size Acceptance (www.phatsa.org/), Paul McAleer's Bigfatblog
(www.bigfatblog.com/), or Marilyn Wann's Fat!So? (www.fatso.com/) is
to meet some highly pissed-off folks.

And shouldn't they be ready to tee off on some big-mouthed skeptic? I
invaded one of the few places where a fat person is not invisible
except as a target of ridicule.

Outside the fat-acceptance board, there are only condemnations of
flab. You'll only see a big belly on TV if you're watching someone on
The Swan, getting ready to have it chopped off.

Appearance dictates popularity on this side of the tube also. Fat
people might feel pressured to remain in abusive relationships,
fearing an alternative of indefinite loneliness.

Then again, they might be wooed by fetishists. Most "fat admirers"
are merely enthusiasts. A tiny subculture of "feeders" actively
encourage weight gain. It's not likely that the tube-feeding
described in Dan Savage's Skipping Towards Gomorrah actually occurs,
but the concept is openly savoured in weight-gain porn.

In addition, the overweight are presumed to be weak-willed. Gerry
Spence, the famous defence lawyer, often sought fat jurors on the
theory that they lacked self-control and were therefore more likely
to excuse misbehaviour. Similar character assumptions could underlie
the phenomenon of weight-based employment discrimination. Fat people
see it over and over again: the solid résumé leading to an interview,
and then nothing.

Unlike other visible groups, fat people cannot generally avail
themselves of legislative protection. Fatness is considered a fixable
problem, whereas no one (save Michael Jackson) would think of
changing race. Therefore, the fat are held entirely accountable for
their own marginalization. It must be a choice, as though anyone
would choose a lifetime of taunting, discrimination, and crappy
clothes.

Critics of fat people find ready recourse to moral indignation.
Gluttony, after all, is a sin! (Pride in six-pack abs, meanwhile,
goes entirely unpunished.) A more secular tut-tutting exists in
social commentary that finds, in fatness, a handy metaphor for North
American privilege.

Paradoxically, fat is also a class issue. Ancient societies--e.g.,
the 1950s--worshipped curves. In modern times, popularity correlates
with emaciation, leading to the truism that "You can't be too rich or
too thin." The poor of our society are often those who weigh the
most.

Yet for all the pressure and reward to be thin, there's no sure way
to achieve it. The diet ads say "results not typical", not out of
some impulse toward modesty, but because some 95 percent of diets
fail.

The current quick fix is weight-loss surgery, espoused by the likes
of Carnie Wilson, who, since the demise of her singing career (with
Wilson Phillips), has become a professional ex-fatty. The process is
considered to yield such beneficial results that it is being
performed on preteens despite evidence that people can continue to
gain weight after gut-banding, assuming they are not among the one
percent mortality rate.

It would be a nice end to this article to suggest that size
acceptance led me to realize that humanity is found in all sizes,
thereby leading to peace with all bodies, including my own.

The barfing has stopped, but only because my weight finally got under
the body-mass index of 25, the cutoff line between "normal"
and "overweight".

Those 30 pounds will probably not stay away forever, but the
experience of life without them has been memorable. People react
differently to me. They say, "You look great now," which, of course,
is another way of saying, "You used to look like hell." This doesn't
mean "Congratulations on your serum cholesterol. How marvellous that
your resting heart rate is under 60." They're saying, "Don't screw
up. Gain it back and you'll be nothing again."

It makes me want to write a book: Thin Like Me. The life of
the "normal-weight" person is so much more pleasant, and, evidently,
talented: TV opportunities, music projects, even a modelling gig have
come my way. It's a bit of pressure; kinda makes you want a few chips
and Smarties--or a few buckets.

Instead, I run. Every other day I lace up the shoes and go--not
toward health, but away from fat. Running is the ultimate fat-
removing tool available to the recovering bulimic, acting as an
enormous garlic press on the body.

Maybe coincidentally, I've also gotten over my need to debate size
acceptance with people who actually know what it is like to live as a
fat person.

In the course of researching this article, I spoke to a few plus-
sized acquaintances.

My last interview was with Pat, a long-time friend of my wife's
family and a tremendously lovely individual. She told me how fat took
away her husband and any subsequent male consolation. In some
respects, it was a good thing, she says; it taught her to have
patience when things seem disastrously wrong.

At that moment, it seemed quite monstrous to continue the interview.
Pat would have been willing to unveil her most hideous humiliations
for this story, but it suddenly occurred to me that there are better
ways to spend time with a pal.

"Pat," I said. "Thank you. But--can we change the subject from fat?"

"Sure, darling," she said. "To what?"

"To you," I said, taking her hand. "Tell me about you."

http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=2793

Anna Nicole Smith is "wasting away" to look good!

New York | May 13, 2004 4:31:23 PM IST

The Reality TV star, Anna Nicole Smith is on a strict diet. Her
slimming regime has indeed become a cause for concern for her friends.

The star, who shed the extra pounds by dieting is continuing to lose
weight by refusing to eat. She now sports a lithe figure that is in
contrast to her earlier voluptuous frame, in The Anna Nicole Show.
Her friends fear that her extreme efforts to slim down are posing a
serious threat to her health.

"She hardly eats. A while back she couldn't pick up a box of cookies
without eating them all, now she won't even read the label," a friend
was quoted as saying by imdb.

"She hardly eats at all because she loves all the praise she gets for
getting slim again. She's wasting away," he further added.

Smith will be visiting France to film a European vacation
documentary, for her next professional venture. (ANI)

http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?
id=38012&cat=Entertainment

Rare show of Art Deco icon set to open

Tue 11 May, 2004 16:35

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - The first major exhibition for some 30 years of
works by outrageous Art Deco icon Tamara de Lempicka is about to open
in London, 24 years after her ashes were scattered over Mexico.

The debauched Polish-born beauty entranced and outraged in equal
measure even the decadent Paris of the 1920s and 30s, but failed to
carry her success across the Atlantic when she moved to America in
1939.

"She rather went out of fashion, and we hope that this exhibition
will put her back in," Royal Academy exhibition organiser Norman
Rosenthal told reporters on Tuesday.

She was the leading painter of the Art Deco era, and the strong
voluptuous lines and bright colours of her pictures of naked or semi-
clothed women in languid poses are instantly recognisable -- more so
in fact than her name.

Born Tamara Gurwick-Gorska in Russian-occupied Poland in 1898, she
and her first husband Tadeusz Lempicki fled the Russian revolution to
Paris in 1917.

The voraciously bisexual de Lempicka studied painting under cubist
artist and philosopher Andre Lhote and rapidly became the leading
light of the Paris art school -- at that time the leading art
movement in the world.

"She had a deeply expressive style and deserves to be known as a
major figure in the Paris school of the 1920s and 30s," Rosenthal
said.

De Lempicka moved with ease among the French intelligentsia and the
Russian emigres in Paris -- painting portraits of many of them --
including Andre Gide and the Grand Duke Gabriel who was one of the
killers of mad Russian monk Rasputin.

After having a string of affairs with men and women alike, she
eventually divorced Tadeusz and married the wealthy Baron Raoul
Huffner, moving to Hollywood in 1939.

She initially repeated her European success in both Hollywood and New
York but her flagrantly decadent style slowly slipped out of fashion.

Her images grew steadily darker in hue and content and in 1962, when
Raoul died, she ceased painting altogether.

She moved to Mexico where she died in 1980, and her daughter Kizette -
- a subject of many of her early works -- scattered her ashes from a
helicopter.

The exhibition at London's Royal Academy which includes 58 of her
paintings runs from May 15 to August 30.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?
type=entertainmentNews&storyID=508696&section=news

DAHL'S TORMENT

May 22 2004

SAD TRUTH BEHIND SUPERMODEL'S GAUNT NEW SHAPE

By David Edwards

SHE was the catwalk star who made curves fashionable when heroin chic
was at its peak - a voluptuous size-16 who seemed to champion the
cause of the fuller-figured woman.

But the sad irony is that while the rest of the modelling world has
finally caught up with the idea, supermodel Sophie Dahl has shrunk to
a shadow of her old self.

She strolled around Sixth Avenue in New York last week with sunken
eyes and angular limbs, down to a skinny size-8 and looking for all
the world as if she had slipped back into the anorexia she conquered
as a teenager.

But friends say the 24-year-old's dramatic transformation simply
reflects her unusually intense relationship with her mother.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14264538&method=full&
siteid=50143&headline=sophie-s-torment-name_page.html

LARGER LADIES FIGHT BACK OVER ABUSE

  woman who weighs more than twenty stone is organising a night out
for curvy girls. Cherry Welton says she's sick of the abuse she gets
whenever she goes out - and is urging larger ladies to socialise
together. Bharat Patel reports.

They know they're not slim - and they feel sidelined. So these large
ladies are checking out this venue at Six Hills in Leicestershire for
their planned Big Night Out. They hope that hundreds of big,
beautiful women will come here, without the fear of being ridiculed.
we've all got hearts at the end of the day and we're all lovely people
Cherry Welton Said. "Look at the ass on that and here come the
elephant crowd, things like that, it's not nice, we've all got hearts
at the end of the day and we're all lovely people." Sharon Reeve
said. "From the gneral lardass comments to people actually smacking
your backside, which is assault in the end. We get a lot of abuse -
if you're above size 10 you get a lot of abuse, it's a fact of life."
The hotel is preparing a special Big Girl's Cocktail for the night -
the recipe is still being worked on. The manager says he's looking
forward to the night - even though he fears the women will be a
handful if the cocktail proves too popular. The Big Night out on June
12th is not just for large ladies. It's also for men who prefer a
more voluptuous figure.

http://www2.itv.com/central/news_east/full_story/?id=859421&type=REG+-
+News+Story+East

Ample proportions: Shifting standards try to measure up to the
average person's expanding girth
Sunday, May 02, 2004
James F. Sweeney
Plain Dealer Reporter
As Americans get bigger, so do the clothes they wear, the vehicles
they drive, the mattresses on which they sleep and the recliners in
which they lounge.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, two-thirds of Americans
are overweight or obese, and the number is growing steadily. The
percentage of the population that is obese has doubled since 1980;
the numbers of those who are morbidly obese (100 pounds or more over
the ideal weight) has quadrupled during that period.

Many of them have a hard time using products designed when Americans
were slimmer and more active.

Now, it's the marketplace to the rescue. Companies are realizing that
overweight people will pay for comfort and convenience even while
buying the latest diet book.

The examples are myriad.

Goliath Casket in Indiana builds only oversize coffins. Last year, it
introduced a model 52 inches wide (24 inches is standard). It
expected to sell one a year. It already has sold six and has two more
on order.

"We're talking about a casket bigger than a pickup truck bed and can
hold 1,000 pounds," said Goliath president Keith Davis.

Fed up with complaints about ill-fitting clothes and lack of
uniformity among manufacturers, the U.S. clothing industry recently
paid for a study to determine what size we really are. The SizeUSA
project used a sophisticated light-scan system to measure the bodies
of more than 10,000 subjects grouped by gender, age and race.

Among its findings is that only 10 percent to 20 percent of most
groups fit the standard size tables of the American Society for
Testing and Materials. The primary reason why clothes don't fit?
We're changing shape, from hourglass to pear. Better-designed clothes
should hit the racks in a few years.

Freedom Paradise near Cancun advertises itself as the first resort
built to cater to the obese vacationer. According to its Web site, it
has four buffet-style restaurants, extra-wide armless chairs and
sunbeds and "staff with a size- friendly attitude."

Eighteen inches wide used to be the norm for movie theater and arena
seats, said Bill MacLeod, director of business development for Irwin
Seating, which makes chairs for AMC Theatres. Now, "no one makes an
18-inch chair," he said. The new standard is 23 to 24 inches.

The door into the theater might be wider as well. A standard
revolving door used to be 6 feet wide; now it's 8 feet, said Tim
Mohl, vice president of marketing for Horton Automatics. He conceded
that fat people have been known to get stuck in the doors, but the
main reason for the expansion is that people are carrying more
things, he said.

In the case of Amplestuff, the obese did not wait for the market to
catch up. The catalog, available in print and online, whose motto
is "Make Your World Fit You," was started in 1988 by a 450-pound
woman and her engineer husband. It sells smaller steering wheels, leg-
lifting straps and devices to help the supersized put on socks and
shoes.

Martha Farrell, 61, of Tallmadge has bought seat-belt extenders,
fanny packs, personal hygiene products and even oversize hospital
gowns from Ample- stuff.

"I don't have to go through the embarrassment of putting one in the
front and one in the back or asking for a larger one," said Farrell,
who weighs 460 pounds.

She welcomes products made for larger people but said negotiating
everyday life is still difficult for the obese.

Nowhere is the demand for plus-size equipment greater than at
hospitals, where patient safety and comfort are paramount.

A survey last year by medical supply company Novation found that 17
percent of responding hospitals had remodeled to accommodate obese
patients. Hospitals estimated the annual cost of treating a growing
number of such patients at $3,500 to $500,000. Some institutions even
have replaced wall-mounted toilets with sturdier floor models.

The examining rooms in the Cleveland Clinic's bariatric surgery
center have 30-inch wide chairs and extra-wide tables that can hold
600 pounds and be lowered for easier access. And scales that used to
top out at 350 pounds have been replaced with models that can handle
660 pounds.

The operating tables in general surgery are being phased out in favor
of models that can hold 1,000 pounds and have side rails to prevent
obese patients from overflowing.

University Hospitals has XXXXX-Large hospital gowns and oversize
blood-pressure cuffs in addition to sturdier chairs and tables. It
also brings in bedside toilets for patients who weigh more than 350
pounds to avoid damaging bathroom toilets.

Bigger products for bigger people are overdue, said Alan Steadham,
director of the International Size Acceptance Association, a Texas-
based nonprofit that seeks to end discrimination against the obese.

"I think the fact this is happening at all is a good thing. It seems
to be happening pretty quickly," he said. "I think there are probably
a lot more things in the works that we probably haven't heard of."

A shortage of products designed for the obese hindered their ability
to enjoy such everyday practices as wearing comfortable clothes,
driving and traveling, he said.

As principal product behaviorist for the design firm Design
Continuum, Aaron Oppenheimer spends a lot of time watching how people
use things. He rarely gets a request to design something specifically
for the obese, but he often has to take Americans' growing girth into
account, such as when redesigning the molded plastic benches at
bowling alleys.

"We needed something to handle the angry 250-pound bowler," he said.

The accommodations can be more subtle than piano-size caskets. For
example, Oppenheimer found that Type 2 diabetes patients, many of
whom are obese, appreciated bigger knobs and dials on their insulin-
testing equipment.

"The more that we see people who are heavier, the more we design
products to meet them," he said. "The average is moving. The extremes
are really moving."

Medical professionals don't worry that products built for the obese
will eliminate the incentive to lose weight.

"I don't think having a bigger seat or having products that make
their day a little easier are going to win out over wanting to lose
weight," said Dr. Todd McCarty, medical director of the weight-loss
program at Baylor University Medical Center. "There is a legitimate
need for them."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jsweeney@..., 216-999-4850

http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/108
341821627771.xml

Carré okay

By S.S. YOGA
A former supermodel is now advocating changing the fashion industry's
use of ultra-thin models in favour of a more reality-reflecting
choice of models. S.S. YOGA talks to Carré Otis.

FROM being one of the regular paper-thin models that served as the
epitome of beauty, this model is now singing a different tune.
Perhaps the weight of suffering and experience, the passing of the
years and the closing of a lot of doors might have influenced the
change in perception.

Carré Otis started out as a model when she was barely 15 although she
had a brief stint as an actress at age 14. Moving to New York in 1983
from her hometown of San Francisco, her career received a boost when
she first appeared on the cover of the French edition of Elle.

The brown-haired, greenish-blue-eyed beauty soon caught the eye of
Paul Marciano, co-boss and creative director of Guess. A series of ad
campaigns for the label in 1989 sent her into the stratosphere of
recognition. She was basically the first girl to set the tone of the
Guess look and also the first Guess girl to reach that level
called "supermodel". Other models were Claudia Schiffer, Naomi
Campbell and Eva Herzigova, to name a few.

Soon prominent campaigns for Calvin Klein (remember the biker babe?),
Revlon (where she was touted as the most unforgettable) and numerous
magazine covers followed.

She was photographed by the most renowned photographers of the day,
also appearing in the famous Pirelli calendar of 1996 that featured
the who's-who of beautiful women.

In all the campaigns, Otis had the "ideal" model's body and now she
is saying it is a bad image to sell.

"It's very liberating not to feel tied to an image created by the
industry of how a woman's body should be like. It's like women are
being told you have to be thin and young. I'm trying to show other
women that it's okay to have curves and more flesh on the body and
that you still look attractive. You don't have to look like Britney
Spears.

"It's much more about character and personality with beauty. Yes,
beauty is skin deep and having a bad attitude is not very pretty,"
says this attractive woman when met at the Guess Watches Timeless
Beauty International Model Search event in Basel, Switzerland. Otis
was there to help announce the winner of the competition and also
give her input to Marciano who personally picks all the faces of
Guess.

Otis reportedly thinks women, when they grow older, need some flesh
on their bones; otherwise they would just look old and wrinkled. She
adds that the use of young girls in advertisements should be to cater
for that age group and if an ad is targeting those older, a model of
a similar age group should be employed.

She now has a thriving career as a plus-size model (she's an American
size 12) and models for clothes specifically designed for women, such
as the Marina Rinaldi label, which is an offshoot of the Italian
label Max Mara. She also goes on the lecture circuit spreading her
word about having a positive body image.

Still, it was a battle from the start. Otis, born to alcoholic
parents, started drinking at the age of eight. Her size was already
an issue with her when she started out as a model. It was a fight
that went on for some time – anorexia and bulimia were her companions
of misery and added to that lethal cocktail was cocaine and heroine
addiction. She almost died from a heart attack brought on by the
addiction.

It did not help that she re-started her acting career and the first
film she acted in gifted her with two seemingly wonderful presents.
The first was she became even more of a household name for her role
as a Brazilian model and the other would eventually become her
husband, her co-star, Hollywood bad boy Mickey Rourke.

The movie was the raunchy Wild Orchid (1990).

Her marriage to Rourke was a turbulent one, in which it was reported
that he beat her while his string of affairs led to her suicide
attempts. The four-year marriage ended in divorce in 1994 but the
hankering for pain seemed to keep them in an on-again-off-again
relationship till it was finally Splitsville in 1998. Otis was quoted
as saying, "... I wish he would stay away."

Otis says she has no regrets about her past and puts it down to an
experience and is thankful it is over and done with now.

"I'm happy with who I am now and feel content and accomplished. It's
never too late to change and I wouldn't change what had happened
before. I just want to continue with my humanitarian work and also my
writing career."

This Buddhist convert now lives a sedate life in Los Angeles and is
more concerned about issues like the foundation that she set up to
help people in Tibet and Nepal. Otis says she fell in love with the
place when she visited the region five years ago and says she feels
rewarded by giving selflessly.

As for her writing work she contributes to some magazines in the
United States and has now also turned to writing for TV. Otis is
quite excited about her new project that she says a cable network is
expected to pick up for the fall season. It will be a series that is
somewhat of a black comedy based on her experiences growing up in the
1980s and culled from journals that she kept and is still keeping of
her life.

It would make for an interesting watch – the experiences of a woman
who has five tattoos: a rose on her right ankle, a Japanese peace
sign above the rose, a Tibetan symbol on her left ankle, a large
angel on her back and a Native American Thunderbird on her wrist.
There seemed to be another on her shoulder that was removed but a
faint outline can still be seen.

"I'm done with tattoos. You couldn't pay me to go back and have more
done. My pain threshold is low now."

Well, the cliché about no pain, no gain seems perfectly apt for her
life and, no, there is no pain from a male companion now as she has
better things to do with her life, she says.

So the "wild orchid" has been "tamed" and it is a sedate and quiet
life filled with meditation for her these days. Overheard asking Otis
backstage at the event was Elle magazine publication director Gilles
Bensimon: "So how often do you go to church?"

The reply: "Yoga is my church!"

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?
file=/2004/5/5/features/7855890&sec=features

Area Beauty Wins 'Miss Plus' Pageant

April Davis of Stockton takes her new responsibility very seriously.
She has been crowned the 2004 "Miss California Plus America," giving
her the opportunity in July to compete in Monroe, La., with women
from all over the United States for the title of "Miss Plus America."

I am proud to be representing the state of California. It is an honor
I take very seriously," Davis recently said.

The Miss Plus America Pageant system is unlike any other pageant
concept. It celebrates the inner beauty of each contestant, as well
as recognizing their commitment to their communities.

Melissa Stamper, executive director for Coronet Productions,
stated, "April is an ideal candidate for the Miss Plus America
Pageant. We are proud to have her as a state titleholder."

As "Miss California Plus America,"  Davis will have the opportunity
to further promote her platform: plus size acceptance.

"I feel that plus size people are not positively accepted in society
or the general media. I want to try to help build avenues to change
that," Davis said. "My Motto is `Never underestimate what you can
accomplish.'"

"I love to witness people excel and succeed. I feel there is nothing
more beautiful than a person with a big heart and a beautiful soul.
Beauty comes from within, if you don't have that, you have nothing,"
Davis added.

A former senior office specialist for the city of San Jose, Davis
currently owns and operates her own daycare.

"I am raising five foster children and a son of my own and am the
oldest of six children. While in high school, I worked as a daycare
assistant at my local YWCA. A few years later, I began raising two of
my sisters. They have both since graduated from high school and began
their own careers," Davis said. "I never thought I would be taking
care of children as a living, but everything happens for a reason."

A very positive person, Davis is an optimistic, goal-orientated and
open-minded person. She loves to help people, especially people less
fortunate than herself.

"If you want something bad enough, you can get it; even if it takes a
lifetime, never give up," Davis said. "I have been overweight since I
was twelve years old. I used food for comfort."

She became severely overweight and her health was at risk. Recently,
she lost more than 100 pounds and feels better than ever.

"My self-confidence and self-esteem have strengthened, and I feel
there is no stopping me," Davis said.

  http://www.sacobserver.com/news/042704/april_davis_miss_plus.shtml

Singing above the storm

Opera star Deborah Voigt, here to perform Wagner, shrugs off
the 'little black dress affair'

By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DAYTON - The first thing you notice when meeting opera diva Deborah
Voigt - aside from her striking sapphire-blue eyes - is that she
looks a lot like the average American. You'd never guess there was an
international media firestorm surrounding her plus-size dress.

"The affair of the little black dress" has become the hottest topic
in the classical music world. Voigt, one of the world's most superb
dramatic sopranos, was dismissed a few weeks ago by London's Royal
Opera from her signature role in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.
The reason cited was that she couldn't fit into the cocktail dress
for the updated production.

The news flew around the world faster than Donald Trump can
say "you're fired!"

"I never dreamt it would be international news and show up on CNN,
for God's sake," says Voigt, who performs another favorite role -
Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walkure - Saturday with the Cincinnati May
Festival.

"On the other hand, it doesn't surprise me, because, especially in
the U.S., it resonated with people who are dealing with this problem.
People think, well aren't (opera singers) supposed to be big? No
we're not, but many of us have been."

Voigt was revisiting the incident the day after giving a magnificent
recital in Dayton's Schuster Center last month, wowing her fans with
five encores and a glamorous costume change to a flirtatious,
feathered creation. She looked fresh - even though post-concert
adrenaline kept her awake until 2:30 a.m.

Apologetic that she was running late for lunch - she'd had a family
emergency - the 43-year-old singer says it was hard to squeeze in her
personal life with her thriving opera schedule, which has her booked
solid until 2010. When she flies in for the May Festival, it will be
two days after singing Isolde (Tristan und Isolde) in Vienna, where
her 23-minute ovation on opening night last May has already become
the stuff of opera legend.

"I'm only doing it as a favor to James (Conlon) because James and I
go way back, and he has been so good to me," she says, referring to
the May Festival music director, who is celebrating his 25th season
in that role. "The first operatic recording I ever made was with
James, of Oberon."

A "cover" singer will be at the rehearsals in Cincinnati before
Voigt's arrival.

"I don't envy her - I remember those days, doing all the work and in
flies the diva, and they don't remember your name," she says,
laughing.

Dressed in pinstriped black slacks, a red blouse and a modish black
and silver necklace, Voigt, a native of Wheeling, Ill., was relaxed
and instantly likable. Although she's recognized as "the greatest
living interpreter of the dramatic heroines of Wagner and Richard
Strauss," (MusicalAmerica.com), this was no "diva."

But after Cincinnati, she'll have six weeks of paid vacation,
courtesy of the Royal Opera House - "not all bad," she notes,
ruefully. She'll use the time to catch up with her family during her
brother's wedding, planned to take place on her private beach in Vero
Beach, Fla.

Diets didn't really work

She brought up the Atkins Diet as she opened her menu, and ordered
the fruit plate. She's struggled with weight since childhood, and has
tried several diets.

"There's not much that I haven't tried, frankly. It (Atkins) made me
pretty nauseous most of the time. It's just too rich."

Her weight, she says, "is part of who I am. I walked around for a
long time having a chip on my shoulder, feeling like it shouldn't
matter. And it shouldn't. Well, it does."

Admitting she was hurt and angry, she adds: "I made my Covent Garden
debut with Luciano (Pavarotti). He was never fired for being too
heavy."

The news about the dress imbroglio came out in an interview in March,
when a writer asked why she was not singing in the production.
Reporters tracked her down in a little hotel in Geneva - first BBC
Radio and then People magazine, which even called her seamstress in
New York and the Metropolitan Opera's costume shop to get her
measurements.

"I thought, 'How in the hell are they getting my phone number?' " she
says. She switched on the television, saw a Beatles tribute and
decided to change her name on the hotel manifest.

"I was Mrs. George Harrison for a few days," she laughs.

Yet, the black dress fiasco exploded during an astonishing run. Voigt
was Musical America's 2003 Vocalist of the Year, and was the first
American singer honored with a new production at Vienna State Opera
(Tristan und Isolde). In her 12th season at the Met, she has
triumphed this year in Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten and Wagner's
Die Walkure.

Last year, she starred in a Broadway benefit for Classical Action and
Broadway Cares/ Equity fights AIDS. In April, she made her Carnegie
Hall recital debut, and her first solo album, Obsessions - opera
arias and scenes by Wagner and Strauss - was released to stellar
reviews.

"Yeah, it's been a big one, no question about it. Yet on a personal
level, it's been a rough year," she notes. "It makes having personal
relationships or even friendships, or relationships with your family -
  really difficult."

The glitz and glamour of the opera stage can be lonely. Her
stepsister died last spring of a rare form of cancer, just before
Voigt opened in Tristan und Isolde, and she couldn't be with her
family.

One of the casualties of her career was her marriage. Now divorced,
her Yorkshire terrier, Steinway, keeps her company on tour - along
with her laptop. She has no homes other than her condo in Vero Beach.

"I tend to stay in a lot of Placido's apartments (that's opera star
Placido Domingo, her leading man in the Met's Die Walkure)," she
says. "He owns apartments in every major city."

Voigt is singing at her peak - with a gleaming, powerful voice, that
could, says Musical America, "light a good-sized city." She's just
announced that she'll debut a new role: the Marschallin in Strauss'
Der Rosenkavelier, in Vancouver, followed by Berlin and Vienna.

After that come La Gioconda ("I love that verismo stuff") and
eventually, the warrior maiden Brunnhilde in Die Walkure. She
attempted a few of Brunnhilde's lusty "Ho-jo-to-ho!" battle cries in
her recital.

"But if you do (Brunnhilde) too soon, you're going to be pigeonholed,
because there are so few of those kinds of singers. So it was really
important to me to try and put off those things as long as possible,"
she says.

There'll always be Broadway

Then there's Broadway. Her Broadway selections brought down the house
in Dayton. Eventually, she plans an album. But first, she's planning
Voigt in Vienna, a disc of turn-of-the-century Viennese bon-bons.

"This crossover thing is going well, and the record company's
saying, 'well, maybe we should go in that direction,'" she says.

The waiter puts an enormous cup of cappuccino in front of her. "Oh,
here's a soup of cappuccino." She laughs.

How long will she keep up the pace?

"When I hear people yelling out, 'I love you Debbie!' from the
balcony, they're seeing something that they're keying into," she
says, referring to a fan's cry the night before.

"It would be really easy at this point in my career to say, I'm going
to do these six roles and sing these two recital programs. And that's
all I'm going to do until the end of it.

"But I feel a greater responsibility than that. I've been given this
great gift. And I have to try to do something with it."

E-mail jgelfand@...

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/05/16/tem_sunlede16.html

Fashion plus: Good looks for big kids

Maria Puente
USA Today
Apr. 27, 2004 12:00 AM


They aren't making little kids like they used to, so U.S. retailers
are offering more choices in trendy clothes to fit the growing number
of plus-size children.

Having finally discovered that most American women are not Size 4,
apparel manufacturers and retailers are learning that most American
girls and boys aren't either. A recent study by Duke University for
the New York-based Foundation for Child Development found that 15.6
percent of children ages 12 through 19 were obese in 2002, up from
6.1 percent in 1974.

Now, just as plus sizes for women have taken off, so, too, are plus
sizes for girls and boys.

Twenty years ago, few retailers catered to this market; today a
growing list of big names, including Wal-Mart, Target, Gap, Old Navy,
the Limited, Lands' End and J.C. Penney, have begun offering or
extending their lines of what is sometimes called "expanded sizing"
apparel.



Sales of plus-size kids apparel have grown to about 12 percent of the
overall children's market - more than $3 billion a year, according to
Marshal Cohen, chief analyst for Fashionworld, a division of the NPD
Group, a marketing research firm.

"It was never important or big enough to focus on because when
business is good and growing at 4 percent to 5 percent a year, people
are not interested in niche markets," Cohen said. "But when business
is declining 4 percent to 6 percent, as it is now, any opportunity
for growth is welcome, and people will go after those niche markets."

J.C. Penney is so serious about this market, it participated in a
just-completed nationwide size survey of 10,000 people to learn more
about American body types. "Everybody's getting bigger," said Christi
Byrd Smith, a company spokeswoman. "The hourglass shape is going
away; most women are Size 12 to 14 and are pear-shaped. So what are
merchants doing to respond to that? One thing is that it's harder to
find a Size 2 or 4 and easier to find a 10 or 12."

In decades past, bigger kids could "size up" - bump up to a larger or
junior size if necessary. These days, that may not be enough because
even overweight children want to wear clothing appropriate to their
age group.

Plenty of plus-size kids are thrilled about the expanded availability
of trendy clothes, Cohen says.

"Recently, I saw four teen girls shopping in a Torrid, one of whom
was overweight, and she was crying," he said. "I asked her why, and
she said it was the first time she could play fashion dress-up with
her girlfriends. . . .

"The store manager said it wasn't the first time she had seen tears
like that."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0427ki
dsplus0427.html

Fat. So?
There´s more to life than being a size 4, says Wendy Shanker in her
new book.

by Janet Reynolds - May 20, 2004

Author Wendy Shanker had an epiphany that, if adopted by more women,
would radically change society. After years of unsuccessful yoyo
dieting, Shanker concluded that people can be fit and fat at the same
time, and that women, in particular, should stop beating themselves
up for failing to attain an unrealistic physical ideal.

She writes of her theories and realizations, using plenty of facts
and humor to bolster her points, in The Fat Girl's Guide to Life . We
caught up with Shanker via e-mail.

People think "fit and fat" is an oxymoronic concept. How would you
disabuse them of this?

Our society is so entrenched with the idea that fat is a horrible
killing phenomenon, because of powerfully provided misinformation and
statistics that get repeated without analysis. New research and books
like Paul Critser's Fat Land and Paul Campos' The Obesity Myth help
debunk a lot of old thought that says you can't be fit and fat.
Numbers like cholesterol level, heart rate, triglycerides, lung
capacity, blood pressure, risk factors, and others are clearer
indicator of cardiovascular health and longevity than weight or BMI
(body mass index).

What is your response to people who will say this is simply your
justification for your own inability to control your eating?

I would tell them to worry about themselves. It's not just fat people
who need to worry about their ability to control eating.

Saying that you're at peace with your body is fine in theory, but how
do you keep your mind from doing crazy things when you look in the
mirror?

I'm like anyone -- I have my good days and my bad days. But I've
learned that being self-deprecating about myself and my body
accomplishes nothing. I know in my heart of hearts that I'm doing
what I can do to take care of myself and live a healthy life.

What stake does the business world have in perpetuating the mindset
that fat is always unhealthy?

We're talking weight loss programs, diet foods and beverages, diet
books, body contouring clothes ... but I would encourage them to look
at the other side of the spectrum: There are plenty of fat folks who
need plus-size gym clothes, lingerie, apparel, and more, and this
market is dramatically underserved.

Skeptics are going to say, "Sure she eats healthily and works out and
is still fat. We know she secretly downs bags of Oreos and M&Ms." For
these people, please describe how you live and what that means for
your overall body weight and health.

I had become so lost in a cycle of dieting and deprivation that it
seemed absolutely normal to eat very little in front of anyone else,
then come home and secretly down bags of cookies, loaves of bread,
and God knows what else. Now that I stopped that cycle and feed
myself what I want or need without a lot of emotional attachment, I
have become much healthier physically and emotionally. I still hate
going to the gym, but I do it because ... I know it's good for my
heart, my muscles, my spirit, so I do it.

If readers could come away from reading your book with one message
what would it be?

The most important message in my book is that it's time for women to
take pride in their bodies, fat or skinny, whatever shape or size.
Our disrespect for our bodies translates into disrespect for our
minds, from within and without. I have learned myself, and I tell
other women to stop listening to voices that tell you that somehow
your size connects to your self-worth. One thing has nothing to do
with the other. You can be fit and fat, you deserve to be strong and
proud, and anyone who tells you otherwise is absolutely wrong.

jreynolds@... The Fat Girl´s Guide to Life

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:66439

Apparel Trends

Within the women's market, large/plus size apparel continued to
outperform other segments. Sales of large sizes grew 10 percent for
the year, according to NPD. Apparel sized 16 and over now comprises a
$26 million market, which accounts for 27 percent of all dollars
spent on women's apparel.

http://retailindustry.about.com/library/weekly/aa022200b.htm

Bigger & better

Specialty departments, stores offer fitting style

By H.M. CAULEY
For The Journal-Constitution

Shoppers in the new Lane Bryant store in Midtown Manhattan are abuzz -
- and not about the fashion-forward clothes. It's the mannequins that
draw the most attention.

"They're shocking in a very good way," says Lane Bryant spokeswoman
Catherine Lippincott. "These are custom mannequins in sizes 14 and
16, with a butt, curves and fleshiness. You can see the meat on her
bones, which has never been done before. Everyone who's been in the
store remarks about them."

The new displays are just the latest reminder that plus-size
customers, women who wear clothes from size 14 to 28, make a
significant impact on the clothing industry, and they are demanding a
better selection. During the past decade, more manufacturers,
designers and retailers have raced to accommodate their needs, and no
wonder: As of 2002, size 14 was the most popular in the United
States, according to marketing information company NPD Group. (In
1985, size 8 was the most popular.) In 2003, plus-size women's
apparel sales reached $17.2 billion.

"They used to be a minority, but now these women are the majority,"
Lippincott said.

Still, the biggest change in the plus-size industry has been the
arrival of more fashionable options. What was once a small selection
dominated by dark colors, vertical stripes and no patterns has
morphed into a complete line of clothing, accessories and intimate
apparel with the same fashion flair as styles cut to fit a size 6.

Shoppers such as Karen Dyer have noticed the change.

Dyer recently slimmed down to a size 14, but her large frame keeps
her coming back to the plus-size lines.

"I like [Ralph] Lauren or Liz Claiborne because they have a more
quality selection," said the Buckhead resident. "Typically, these
sizes have a lot of elastic junk, but those two are always well-made
and they fit."

At the Rich's-Macy's in Lenox Square, the shop for women carries
sizes 14 to 24. The newest addition to the mix is a year-old section
called Gen-Now Plus. It's geared for young plus-size buyers. Gen-Now
Plus features clothing from such junior designers as l.e.i. and Baby
Phat.

"Gen-Now Plus has many of the junior brands that appeal to the
customer as young as 15, as well as customers as old as 40 who want a
younger, trendier look," said Susan LeGates, vice president of
special sizes sportswear for Rich's-Macy's. "They have more of a
junior cut; for example, a jean rests on the hip as opposed to higher
on the waist."

Those styles appeal to Fernanda Suarez of Suwanee, who recently went
shopping for summer outfits.

"These are cool clothes for teens my age," said the 15-year-old, who
tried on a dusty pink Baby Phat top ($31 on sale) with a short denim
skirt ($72). "They look nice, and they're so comfortable."

Along with the needs of the younger buyers, LeGates said plus-size
clothing must accommodate a range of body types -- and ages.

"We've got young, old, tall, petite customers, all with a lot of very
different needs and body types," she said. "To cater to all those
things can be very challenging. Particularly in bottoms, there are
customers who need a petite length in a large size. If we could
change one thing, it would be to have petite lengths. And then you
have a lot of the women who aren't necessarily overweight, but buy
these clothes because of their build -- very tall with a large bone
structure."

The Rev. Charlie Souders, a plus-size shopper, wears a lot of dark
colors in deference to her job as a minister. But on a recent outing
to Piedmont Park, she sported a pair of hip-hugging capris, a tank
top and a linen blouse.

"I'm usually in a suit, and I get tired of all that," she said. "But
I've been fluffy all my life. I shop anywhere I can find clothes that
are fun -- and that fit."

Though finding plus sizes in a range of styles has gotten easier,
customers will pay more for the privilege.

"Pricing is one of the frustrations," said LeGates. ". . . You don't
want to pay more for a larger size, but there is definitely an
increased price on some of these pieces."

http://www.ajc.com/buyersedge/content/buyersedge/features/0504/15pluss
ize.html

Big girls do buy

Plus-size teens want all of the curvy, sexy choices their slender
counterparts have, and retailers are competing for the perfect fit

By Stephanie Kang

The Wall Street Journal


At 5 feet 2 and more than 160 pounds, Alicia Derrick had a tough time
finding clothes that fit. She usually left stores empty-handed.

But on a recent trip to a Torrid store in Northridge, Calif., the 26-
year-old singer picked up a black lace tank top, silver-studded belt
and black cargo pants. "It's got everything," she says of Torrid. In
most stores, "you go to the teen section and it's all for stick
girls."

Torrid, a national chain with 52 stores, is at the leading edge of a
quest to solve an important retailing riddle: What do the growing
ranks of overweight young American women want to wear? It is
prospering with an unconventional answer: the same clothes other
young women want.

With an assortment of tulle prom dresses, fishnet tights, camisole-
and-thong lingerie sets and T-shirts with slogans such as, "All this
and brains too," Torrid looks like a lot of other retailers catering
to teen-age girls. The look is Britney Spears wannabe, full of curvy
silhouettes with hip-hugging jeans and revealing tops.

Torrid's ideal customers are "young, fashion-forward and not afraid
to be sexy, feminine and sassy," according to its annual
report. "These girls want to feel good, and they want as many options
as anyone else," says Betsy McLaughlin, the 43-year-old chief
executive of teen retailer Hot Topic, which launched Torrid three
years ago. Analysts say Torrid became profitable last year and is one
reason Hot Topic's profit rose 39 percent in its most recent fiscal
year, while its stock price doubled.

The nation's biggest retailers, including Wal-Mart and Target, have
struggled to understand this market. Typically they stocked loose-
fitting basics such as the baggy T-shirts and denims found in Lane
Bryant, the nation's largest purveyor of plus-size women's clothing.
Many were discouraged by the technical complexities of making
fashionable clothes in large sizes and befuddled by overweight
consumers, who rarely shop in malls. Manufacturers have been
reluctant to devote resources to a market where, aside from Torrid,
there aren't many retail customers.

Wal-Mart's plus-size "tween" line, for ages 8 to 12, called Faded
Glory, lasted only one year after its 2001 introduction. In January
2003, Wal-Mart started offering the clothing line of teen stars Mary-
Kate and Ashley Olsen in extended sizes. But sales have been
lackluster, in part because the items were "lost on a rack of regular
sizes," says Judy Swartz, executive designer at the Olsen twins'
company Dualstar Entertainment Group. "The problem is, we still don't
really know who this girl is, so it's been incredibly difficult to
find the right place to put her clothes."

Wal-Mart says that since January it has been displaying the Olsens'
plus-size clothes on separate racks. Melissa Berryhill, a Wal-Mart
spokeswoman, says in an e-mail that the retailer is also fine-tuning
designs in a bid to make the clothes a better fit. "We continue to
work to better understand this business," she adds.

At Target's chain of 266 Mervyn's stores, plus-size clothes for teens
have been part of the women's plus-size department since July 2002.
Mervyn's is launching a separate plus-size area for girls under 11
this year. By contrast, the company's Target stores are adding sizes
17 and 19 to the regular teen area. A Target spokeswoman says both
chains are still trying to figure out the plus-size-teen market and
are taking note of Torrid's success.

All these retailers are chasing a booming market. As many as 25
percent of American teens are technically overweight, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But plus-size sales
accounted for only about 10 percent of the $19 billion fashion market
for girls between the ages of 7 and 19, according to NPD Group, a
market-research firm based in Port Washington, N.Y.

"It was sad, really -- I had so much money and nothing to buy," says
Dujuana Brossman, a size-18 so-called fit model, who tests clothes
before they go to market for fashion companies including Torrid.
Brossman, who declined to give her age, recalls her childhood
shopping days in Arkansas when she would come home with little more
than "big, nasty maternity pants."

The industry's standard size range runs from 0 to 15. Plus-size
clothes typically start at size 16 and can go higher than 26.

Torrid's roots are in Hot Topic, a retailer whose collection of goth-
and punk-inspired clothes struck a chord with suburban teens. With
dark walls and blaring music, Hot Topic's 518 stores sell body
jewelry and T-shirts hawking rock bands such as Good Charlotte and TV
shows including Family Guy. Having conquered the typical mall rat,
Hot Topic began offering bigger sizes for certain pants and dress
lines, which sold out quickly. Then, customers started asking for a
larger selection of bigger clothes.

The requests reached the desk of McLaughlin, who joined Hot Topic in
1993 and became chief executive in 2000. She says she reads every
comment card filled out by customers and prides herself on being up
to date with teen culture. At a recent investor conference, to
illustrate the tastes of her customers, McLaughlin quoted lyrics from
Somewhere I Belong, a song by rock band Linkin Park: "I want to
heal/I want to feel/Like I'm close to something real."

Hot Topic store managers and buyers started echoing customer requests
just as McLaughlin and other executives were considering opening a
second chain. McLaughlin presented the idea for Torrid to the
company's board at her first strategic meeting as chief executive.
She says there was resistance because "no one had done it before."

In brainstorming sessions, designers asked a bevy of young,
overweight women a question few in the fashion industry had ever
bothered to ask: What do you want to wear?

The answer was surprising. "We always knew there was a niche, but we
wanted to know things like, 'Do big girls want short shorts?' " says
Magnus Walker, head designer at Los Angeles-based Serious Clothing, a
fashion manufacturer that sells cargo pants and scoop-necked blouses
at Torrid. "Turns out the answer was yes, and then some."

In picking a name, McLaughlin wanted a familiar word -- like "Gap" --
that was normally used in a different context. "We wanted to do the
same thing with Torrid, and also wanted it to mean sexy, hot and
feminine," she says. To drive the point home, Torrid also changed the
typeface in its early logo from skinny and jagged to pink and rounded.

The chain still faced the same problem that had deterred others: How
do you design clothes that fit a plus-size girl and still meet the
requisite standards of coolness? It initially took Torrid
manufacturers as long as 18 months to finish a piece of clothing.
Some fast-moving retailers can get products from the drawing board to
stores within six weeks. At Torrid, each item would pass through
manufacturers, designers, models, pattern makers and executives
sometimes more than twice before getting the green light.

Through trial and error, designers and manufacturers began to unravel
the code. Typically, pattern makers know how to change a product's
dimensions as its size increases through a process called grading. To
extend a standard junior's top from medium to large, designers know
to expand its circumference by 2 inches. But a similar plus-size
upgrade requires a 4-inch adjustment.

"Even experienced junior pattern makers have to know what they're
doing in plus-sizes, or there will be mistakes," says Maya Gonzalez,
a pattern maker for Los Angeles-based manufacturer Masyd, who used to
work on plus-size clothes.

To make a plus-size top, arm holes and midsections had to be cut
bigger, while shoulder widths stayed the same, says Liz Weismann, a
designer for Serious Clothing. Weismann says she doesn't know
why. "Some of it is just counterintuitive," she says. Torrid
designers also learned to drop the bottom hem of T-shirts 2 inches to
account for larger busts, while adding fabric to the back of skirts.

Designers also tried to tap into their target customers' psyche to
learn which style details worked best. That usually meant
accentuating curvy figures and shunting attention away from problem
areas such as hips and backsides. Bold prints and sheer fabrics
quickly proved to be a mistake because they looked unflattering.

Accessories makers also had to adapt. Before opening its first store,
Torrid asked manufacturers for longer straps on handbags and extended
sizes for bracelets, rings and chokers. The bottoms of shoes, such as
pink wingtip Mary Janes, were widened. With boots, the calf area was
made roomier.

Bigger girls don't flock to the mall in the same way as their peers.
Torrid needs to catch each passer-by and tries to do so with a clear
sign "Torrid: The Alternative for Sizes 12-26." Large dressing rooms
have mini pink-satin pillows hanging on the doorknob with "Do Not
Disturb" in black cursive to quell jitters of shy customers. Torrid's
ads feature attractive plus-size models who aren't necessarily
overweight. Store staff members are often on the large side, although
the company says that isn't by design.

"You know, girls come here in tears," says Veronica Wills, an
assistant store manager in Northridge, who applied to her local
Torrid store three months before it opened. "It's pretty cool to help
somebody get out of their box, especially the high school kids; they
can be so shy." Store employees say it's not unusual to find
customers who have driven 200 miles to get to the nearest Torrid, and
local newspapers often give coverage to store openings. In Fort Worth-
Dallas, Torrid is in The Parks at Arlington mall. Texas has three
other stores -- one in San Antonio and two in Houston (including one
in the Galleria).

Torrid's parent, Hot Topic, doesn't break out the chain's earnings.
Analysts who follow the company say Torrid has been posting a modest
quarterly profit since last year's third quarter, which ended Nov. 1,
2003. Hot Topic CEO McLaughlin won't be specific about Torrid's
performance other than to say it has posted steadily improving
margins.

In the year ended Jan. 31, 2004, Hot Topic's net income jumped to $48
million from $34.6 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose
29 percent to $572 million. Hot Topic's stock, which languished at
$10 a share in mid-2002, soared to a high of more than $32 in January
before falling back to about $22 on fears the company might miss out
on this year's girly fashion trends.

Some designers reject Torrid's approach and suggest that plus-size
women shouldn't be wearing outfits such as bellybutton-baring T-
shirts. Torrid carries "JLO by Jennifer Lopez Plus Sizes," a line of
clothes from the singer and actress. But the label has decided to
steer away from more risque designs because it thinks that some
looks -- such as halter tops -- "won't work appropriately," says
Denise Seegal, chief executive of Sweetface Fashion Co., which owns
the JLO line.

Torrid's McLaughlin says she believes overweight women should be able
to wear "anything their skinnier counterpart can," but adds that the
company "has a responsibility to the community to have sensitivity in
the product mix." Along with miniskirts, Torrid also stocks more
traditional clothing for women such as pinstripe trousers and sweater
sets.

A lot of manufacturers still steer clear of the plus-size market,
says Masud Sarshar, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Apparel
Limited, producer of the Dickies Girl brand, which is sold at Torrid.
Sarshar says manufacturers are paid for the extra fabric that's
required but aren't necessarily compensated for the additional labor
it can take to find the right fit. Manufacturers use about 1.67 yards
of fabric to make a regular pair of pants, while a plus-size pair
requires about 2.75 yards.

There also is a limited safety net if a Torrid order goes wrong.
Manufacturers often sell merchandise elsewhere if the original buyer
cancels but, "if Torrid cancels on me, we have no one else," says one
manufacturer.

Torrid says it has never canceled an order, and manufacturers say Hot
Topic is easier to work with than many retailers. Helping out Hot
Topic's still-fledgling second chain is part of the business
relationship, they say.

That's good news for customers such as Anthony Solis, who visits
Torrid to pick up clothes for his wife. Solis, who describes himself
as a "big guy," picks up Mary Jane shoes and "dressy, fun tops" for
his wife to wear when they go to see new metal bands such as Godsmack.

"As the marriage progressed in years, the pounds came on," says
Solis, who works as a clerical worker in Fullerton, Calif. "I've
always wanted to shop for her, but there really weren't any options
until now."

Where to shop

• Torrid's only North Texas location is in The Parks at Arlington
mall at 3811 S. Cooper St., Suite 2414. Call the store at (817) 465-
8765. (The only other Texas locations are in Houston and San Antonio.)

• Jennifer Lopez's plus-size line, JLo Lovelies, is available online
at www.shopjlo.com.

• The mary-kateandashley line of clothing, including plus sizes, is
at the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 8401 Anderson St. in Fort Worth (just
north of I-30 at Eastchase Parkway). Other Wal-Marts carry the Olsen
twins' line of clothing; call your local store to see if the plus-
size line is available.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/living/8656170.htm?1c

Good fit, bad message?

Plus sizes boost teens' self-esteem but some worry they encourage
obesity, too

Lisa Nicita
The Arizona Republic
May. 22, 2004 12:00 AM


At 13 years old, Jon Parris is already well-acquainted with shopping
in the men's department.

The Peoria teen has searched recently for hip-looking T-shirts and
cargo pants. Struggling with a waist that stretched to 34 inches, the
seventh-grader had outgrown kids sizes, forcing him and his mother to
search in the men's section for clothes to fit him.

"It was a pain to wait for them to be ready because they had to be
hemmed and everything," Jon said of the men's clothes. Often hemming
the pants would trim off the low trendy cargo pockets.

Now retailers are responding to America's growing children, offering
kids fashions in bigger sizes. While kids are happy with more
fashionable options, some doctors and parents worry that while the
plus-size clothes help self-esteem, they could also signal an
acceptance of childhood obesity.

It used to be almost impossible to find plus-size clothes for kids.
Sears and JC Penney used to call them "husky," offering basics such
as jeans and plaid shirts.

Now, brands such as Levi's and trendy stores such as Old Navy and
GapKids are offering larger sizes, while pioneers such as JC Penney
have expanded their selections.

GapKids and Old Navy begin offering husky sizes for boys at Size 7,
allowing about two more inches in the waist, while plus sizes for
girls begin at Size 8 with about three inches more room in the waist
compared with a "regular" fit.

"These aren't just overweight children. It's different things. Their
actual body shapes are changing," said Christi Byrd Smith, a
spokeswoman for JC Penney. "It has a lot to do with issues, image and
fashionability. And I think society in general is getting the fact
that you can be overweight and still be beautiful. We recognize there
are all different shapes and sizes. . . . Our customers deserve to
wear something to fit in with their peers and deserve something
fashionable."

However, medical professionals and parents of overweight children are
torn on the issue. Yes, larger, better-fitting clothing can provide
short-term gain for children in terms of self-esteem. But will the
growing selection prove to be a motivation killer?

"I don't see the value in labeling it husky," said Laura Fichman, a
clinical psychologist in Phoenix. "Even the subtle difference for a
14-year-old will be significant. On the flip side, if she can wear
what's in style that all her friends are wearing, that's great."

Although no one tracks the childhood obesity rate in Arizona, the
number of overweight children nationally is rising. From 1976 to
1980, 7 percent of U.S. children ages 6 to 11 were obese. Two decades
later, the number had increased to 15 percent, according to the
American Obesity Association. The organization considers children
obese if they are at the 95th percentile of Body Mass Index.

Head Start programs across Arizona have reported more than a third of
the kids enrolled are overweight. The Arizona Youth Risk Behavior
Survey, taken last year, found that 40 percent of high school girls
and nearly a quarter of high school boys would describe themselves as
overweight.

"I don't know if it's appropriate to promote (husky sizes) as self-
acceptance because it might limit children in keeping themselves
healthy," said Fichman. "If, as a society, we get comfortable with
that, what are the long-term consequences of this? Are we normalizing
something that isn't healthy? On the other hand, there is a reality
of childhood obesity, and we don't want to accept that as a society,
I imagine."

Rakesh Patel, a family physician practicing in the East Valley, said
he has noticed an uptick in overweight children, and said families
often welcome advice on managing their children's weight.

"Usually, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's important to
get the family involved. There's no medicine for kids for weight
loss," said Patel, who often recommends a Weight Watchers program for
his overweight patients. "I think it's important to them to fit in,
in the short term, so they build their self-esteem and feel
motivated. If in the long run having these husky sizes will make them
more social, make them exercise . . . the worst thing to do is put an
overweight child in ill-fitting attire. It will only get worse."

Rebecca Harrington of Paradise Valley was relieved to find plus sizes
for her 12-year-old daughter, Charlise Mason. Harrington and Mason
enrolled in a Weight Watchers program this year after the Village
Vista Elementary School sixth-grader had trouble finding trendy
clothes because of her weight.

"We were having a hard time finding things. Finally, I found some
Levi's at Mervyn's with the half sizes. It was like so great, because
she could wear them and they weren't too long. So, that did really
make her feel a lot better," said Harrington, noting Charlise has
already lost enough weight to move from a girl's Size 16 1/2 jeans to
a 14. "I think it's great, but then again, it's almost like a Catch-
22, because it's almost like you're condoning them to get big."

Charlise keeps herself busy with a trio of dance classes each week at
Betty Johnson School of Dance in Phoenix. Her love of dancing
prompted her to lose weight.

"I go to dance a lot, and there's pretty skinny people there. And, I
don't consider myself big, but I'd like to get into some nice
clothes, and I'd like to feel better about myself," Charlise
said. . "I don't think being fat is bad. Really, it's what makes you
happy."

Jon Parris is just a few pounds away from his goal weight established
during sessions at Weight Watchers. He's gone from shopping in the
men's department to sporting a trimmer, 30-inch waist after losing
more than 41 pounds. He's now able to return to the boys department.

"I actually first wanted a girlfriend," Jon said. "Now I have one, so
that's kind of cool."

Charlise is nearing her first goal, but she has a pretty clear
perspective on the issue of plus sizes.

She was happy to find cute jeans to wear while she's losing weight.
But she thinks plus-size kids clothes could deter other kids from
exercising.

"Even though they have the sizes out, that doesn't mean that's the
sizes you have to get."


Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8829.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0522hu
sky0522.html

Plus with panache

Style is getting bigger in 'above-average' women's fashions.
GREG BONNELL, CP

TORONTO -- Who among us doesn't put a little glide in their stride
when they know they're dressed to kill? After all, following the
trends and feeling good about your appearance are what fashion is all
about. But too often, plus-size customers are stopped in their tracks
by must-have collections that end at size 12.

While there have always been clothes for the above-average market,
retailers are increasingly acknowledging that Rubenesque women want
more than just a functional wardrobe: they want to look sexy, hip and
trendy.

"I wanted to wear the things that were in the smaller stores, so I
went into plus-size stores but I couldn't find them," said Karen
Samuels. "I didn't want to wear what they said plus-size women should
wear."

That included what Samuels referred to as "grandma clothes" -- loose,
shapeless T-shirts and elastic waistband pants. Her sister Angela,
also a plus size, suggested opening a store called Voluptuous.

"We realized that girls that are sizes 13, 14, 15, 16 are not round;
they do have a figure," said Samuels.

Four years later, the sisters -- both in their early 30s -- are
launching their third Toronto store. There are plans to expand next
year to Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal.

"When you're with skinnier friends they look better because their
clothes are better," said Samuels. "Now, we can look as good, if not
better, because we're wearing the same fashions."

Voluptuous offers sexy dresses, blouses with plunging necklines and
skirts with seductive hemlines. And they come in this season's
hottest colour trends.

With the success that specialty stores have enjoyed in catering to
the plus-size market -- and the numerous media reports about the
increasing size of the average Canadian -- department stores are
updating their above-average collections.

"We started looking at our strategy a couple of years ago," said
Brian Burgess, general merchandise manager for the Bay, which was
falling behind the plus-size competition.

"We took a look on the floor and we realized we didn't have any
fashionable product," he said. "We had brands . . . that were
targeted to an older customer."

To remedy the situation, the Bay announced this week that it's
expanding its above-average womenswear departments -- and not with
just any old labels. Women browsing the racks will find plus-size
collections from Melrose, Mac & Jac, Nine and Co., Tommy Hilfiger and
Ralph Lauren.

"All the pinks, the skirts, the feminine detailing you see with the
(petite and regular size) clothing, you'll see in our above-average
assortments," said Burgess.

The competition was quick to remind consumers about their own plus-
size collections following the Bay's announcement, with Sears issuing
its own release highlighting its Tradition and Jessica private
brands. Of course, Penningtons and Addition-Elle have targeted the
market exclusively for years .

"There's always some who've catered to it," retail analyst John
Winter said of the plus-size market. "But it seems to have grown much
larger because of the underlying social trends."

In their releases, both the Bay and Voluptuous quoted industry
figures suggesting 30 per cent of Canadian women wear size 14 and
over.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/Today/2004/05/18/463414.
html

Plus-size riders may not fit on redone coaster


SANDUSKY (AP) -- Plus-sized riders may not fit in repositioned seat
belts on Cedar Point's 93 mph, 310-foot high Millennium Force roller
coaster, the amusement park has warned.

The belts were repositioned at the direction of the manufacturer
after a man was killed riding a similar coaster at Six Flags New
England, Cedar Point spokesman Robin Innes said yesterday.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Safety said the 5-foot-2, 230-
pound man was too big to have been safely restrained on the Superman
Ride of Steel coaster on May 1.

Innes said the change makes it ''a little more snug, tight, and,
unfortunately, prevents some riders who were able to ride in last
year from riding it this year.''

In a general disclaimer on its Web site, Cedar Point says men 6-foot-
2-inches or taller and weighing more than 220 pounds and women more
than 200 pounds or who wear size 18 dresses or bigger may not fit on
some rides.

''Each person has different body proportions, so it is impossible to
determine exact size and weight,'' the warning states.

Two summers ago Tony Ventresco of Youngstown had no problem riding
the roller coaster, but he now finds the belts tighter.

''I'm not much larger than anybody else,'' he said. ''I'd be a little
upset if they said I couldn't ride.''

Signs regarding size limits are posted, and ride operators ask some
guests to try the test seat. Informational brochures given to guests
also have the warnings, Innes said.

------

http://www.morningjournal.com/site/news.cfm?
BRD=1699&dept_id=46371&newsid=11764880&PAG=461&rfi=9

Chamein Canton, author of the Plus Size Bridal Guide ' Down that
aisle in
style', due out later this year, is featured by Lifetime, Television
for Women
on their show Lifetime:Share your Story, 20th Anniversary.

BE SURE TO TUNE IN and learn more about this extraordinairy woman!

Show info: Lifetime Television for Women

May 25th/Tuesday from 6-7pm (Eastern Time)

You can also see it after the 24th on www.lifetimetv.com

Chamein also writes a column for ElegantPlus. We're so proud of you
Chamein!

Episode 1 of the Model Search is now online at Curvaeous Magazine

It is 6 minutes long, 6 MB, Quicktime format, so have your broadband
connection ready (or a good book to read while it downloads).

http://www.curvaceousmagazine.com/