Título 72: How to get Fat

Autor:Jane Smith

Comentario:

HaIt’s not easy to put on weight. Everywhere you look it seems there’s another excuse not to eat. Too busy for snacktime or meals, the incessant desire to get out there and exercise—sometimes it just feels like the cards are stacked against you. Even if you’ve failed at weight gain before, with this easy, step-by-step guide, you’ll discover your inner corpulence. Explore the pleasures of amplitude—it’s time to get fat!
Learn How To:
Be appreciated for your personality and pretty face
Build up to maximum carb, fat, and sugar intake levels
Put the junk where it belongs—in your trunk

Título 70: ¡ Me caes gordo!

Autor:Rafael Álvarez Cordero

Comentario:

Ha utilizado la frase "me caes gordo" al dirigirse a una persona? Si esa persona es obesa ?le dice as? por su exceso de peso ? , y si no es as? ?por qu? la califica de "gordo"? "Me caes gordo" es una frase que puede significar muchas cosas: desagrado, rechazo hacia un individuo que concideramos necio, tonto, obstinado, perezoso. ?Por qu? la palabra gordo? Porque originalmente significaba eso: lerdo, lento y tonto y se asoci? desde siempre al exceso de peso, a la obesidad; hoy gordo y obeso son sdjetivos muy similares. El problema surge cuando un individuo padece obesidad, y con ella vienen molestias y enfermedades y por a?adidura, sufre una serie de vejaciones, burlas y humillaciones que la mayor?a de las veces enfrenta en silencio. A diferencia de lo que ocurr?a en otras ?pocas, la sociedad actual es intolerante con el obeso; en los ?ltimos a?os, la llamada cultura light, en la que se privilegia a quienes son extremadamente delgados, ha aumentado la discriminaci?n hacia los primeros. En este libro se analiza el t?rmino gordo a trav?s del tiempo en el arte, en el cine y la televisi?n y se hacen propuestas para proteger la dignidad de estas personas.

Título 69: Gordo

Autor: Jesús Ruíz Mantilla

Comentario:

A Ramón Pérez Carrasco desde siempre le han llamado Monchón. Lo lógico hubiera sido, quizá, llamarle por su diminutivo, pero sus 130 kilos de peso le aumentaron el mote desde el colegio hasta hoy. Monchón es gordo y rebelde, trabaja como crítico gastronómico y a veces querría desaparecer pero no puede. Observa la vida desde el prisma deforme que le da su aspecto
físico, con los resquicios de los traumas de la infancia y los complejos que le asaltan en esa edad crítica en la que crees que sigues siendo joven, pero ya no, hasta el punto de sentirse el protagonista de una comedia y una fábula contemporánea, en la que mezcla la obsesión con el placer de una forma muy propia y permanentemente confusa.

Título 1: The Obesity Myth

Autor: Paul Campos

Comentario:

Specifically written for people who are overweight, medically supervised or inactive, this fitness guide is tailor-made for the millions of Americans who have felt left behind by the diet and fitness industry. Readers learn how to start feeling happy and energized from the moment they start moving, without expensive equipment or a gym membership.

Título 2: 365 Glorious Nights of Love and Romance

Autor: Patrika Darbo

Comentario:

Fans of Days of Our Lives will immediately recognize Darbo, better known as the full-figured, sensual Nancy Wesley on that show. Voted one of TV Guide's sexiest women in 1999, Darbo has taken this honor too seriously. Her book begins as an autobiography but switches to a manual on how to be sexy every day. Readers expecting her life story will not find it here. Life experiences are sprinkled throughout, but the text focuses on how to be sexually pleased and pleasing. Though Darbo writes sensitively and in a personal style that is easy to read, even her biggest fans may quickly lose interest. They may also bridle at her advice, which can be archaic, e.g., "a finger to your lips, a gentle stroke to the bottom lip while dreamily thinking about an answer to a question, is very sensual." Ultimately, this is entertaining but insubstantial; had Darbo provided some backstage gossip, she would have had a best seller. Purchase only where there is interest. Rosalind Dayen, Broward Cty., Florida South Regional Lib. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
I've learned never to let momentary fear stand in my way. There are no excuses. I've learned that power is sexy. So is confidence in yourself.Patrika Darbo, the popular star of Days of Our Lives and the woman who TV Guide calls the "full-figured bitch goddess" of daytime television, has broken the size barrier and shattered the stereotype that heavy people are doomed to unhappy lives -- personally or professionally. Here Patrika shares her life story, writing with her heart on her sleeve about her hard-won victories as she offers advice -- not for losing weight, but for gaining confidence, a winning attitude, and a positive approach to life.Patrika doesn't ask anyone to change but simply to celebrate who they really are. Patrika herself wasn't always self-confident and savvy to the ways of Hollywood and the real world. Over the years, she's often been up and down on the scale; yet through all the diets and binges she's never lost sight of her dreams and has never let momentary fear stand in her way. She's the first to admit that issues of self-esteem go along with being big, but she's learned how to move beyond them and has never allowed conventional notions of beautylimit her or tell her what her life should be. No matter who you are or what size you're not, you can be beautiful, confident, and sexy. As Patrika takes you through her life story, she offers advice for living out loud and great pointers for making everyday exciting -- from the set of Days of Our Lives to the bedroom (or kitchen, or living room, or laundry room). Patrika encourages and inspires women of all sizes to remember the best of who they are.

Título 3: Sizeable Reflections

Autor: Shelley Bovey

Comentario:

Fans of Days of Our Lives will immediately recognize Darbo, better known as the full-figured, sensual Nancy Wesley on that show. Voted one of TV Guide's sexiest women in 1999, Darbo has taken this honor too seriously. Her book begins as an autobiography but switches to a manual on how to be sexy every day. Readers expecting her life story will not find it here. Life experiences are sprinkled

Título 4: Thin Is Just a Four-Letter Word: Living Fit-For All Shapes and Sizes

Autor: Dee Hakala, Michael D'Orso

Comentario:

Specifically written for people who are overweight, medically supervised or inactive, this fitness guide is tailor-made for the millions of Americans who have felt left behind by the diet and fitness industry. Readers learn how to start feeling happy and energized from the moment they start moving, without expensive equipment or a gym membership.

At a time when 65 percent of the American population is considered "deconditioned," the fitness industry seems more and more to be serving those who're already in shape, rather than the majority of the population, which isn't. That's the problem Dee Hakala encountered when she started taking aerobics classes with 320 pounds on her under-5-foot frame. She lost 100 pounds and 35 inches off her waist, but more than that, she started a series of exercise programs to reach people who're severely overweight and otherwise atypical in the gym world. This is more her life story than a fitness manual, but it's a valuable resource for anyone who's felt left out of the fitness revolution.

Título 5: Big Big Love: A SourceBook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them

Autor: Hanne Blank

Comentario:

At last, a book that covers the how-tos and why-tos of sexuality from the point of view of big folks and those who love them! Big Big Love is a no-holds-barred, yet lighthearted, overview of sex for everybody from the chubby to the supersized. With detailed and realistic information on improving self-image, partner-finding, sexual positions and activities, resources and much more, Big Big Love dares to speak to everybody who?s ever feared they were out of the running for a bountiful and sexy life. Essential reading for women, men and transfolk... heterosexuals, gays and bisexuals...and anyone else who's ever been told that sex is only for the slender!

Hanne Blank is no tease. When she says big, she means real big. When she says love, she means real love. And when she says, 'Hey, sailor...' (Well, that's another story.) Here is a book unlike any other: much-needed, long-awaited, and thoroughly fun! — (Marilyn Wann, author of Fat!So? Because You Don't Have To Apologize For Your Size).

Título 6: Bodies out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression

Autor: Jana Evans Braziel (Editor), Kathleen LeBesco (Editor)

Comentario:

Since World War II, when the diet and fitness industries promoted mass obsession with weight and body shape, fat has been a dirty word. In the United States, fat is seen as repulsive, funny, ugly, unclean, obscene, and above all as something to lose. Bodies Out of Bounds challenges these dominant perceptions by examining social representations of the fat body. The contributors to this collection show that what counts as fat and how it is valued are far from universal; the variety of meanings attributed to body size in other times and places demonstrates that perceptions of corpulence are infused with cultural, historical, political, and economic biases. The exceptionally rich and engaging essays collected in this volume question discursive constructions of fatness while analyzing the politics and power of corpulence and addressing the absence of fat people in media representations of the body. The essays are widely interdisciplinary; they explore their subject with insight, originality, and humor. The contributors examine the intersections of fat with ethnicity, race, queerness, class, and minority cultures, as well as with historical variations in the signification of fat. They also consider ways in which "objective" medical and psychological discourses about fat people and food hide larger agendas. By illustrating how fat is a malleable construct that can be used to serve dominant economic and cultural interests, Bodies Out of Bounds stakes new claims for those whose body size does not adhere to society's confining standards.

Título 7: Fat: Exploding the Myths

Autor: Lisa Colles, Foreword by Andrew Prentice

Comentario:

Fat: Exploding the Myths sets out to explore all sides of this complex and controversial subject, and to provide answers for the many questions raised. More than 100 international experts in the field have been interviewed in the course of researching this book, providing access to the latest information on the subject. Around the world in gyms, hospitals, schools, universities, eating disorder clinics, obesity clinics, fat acceptance groups and private homes, there are hundreds of people whose lives and careers are dominated by fat. Fashion shows, advertisements and magazines continue to unnecessarily emphasize thinness as a virtue. Food manufacturers appeal to this market with their low-fat and fat-free varieties yet continue to offer high-cholesterol foods without regard to their consequences. Fat: Exploding the Myths brings all these stories to life.

Título 8: Carrying a Little Extra: A Guide to Healthy Pregnancy for the Plus-Size Woman

Autor: Paula Bernstein, Marlene Clark, Netty Levine

Comentario:

The first health guide for plus-size moms-to-be. For the pregnant woman, or the woman trying to conceive, weight problems provide a special set of challenges. This is certainly not the time for strict dieting and strenuous exercise...yet sensible weight management is an essential part of mother's and baby's health. In this book women can find the facts they need on:

€ How weight affects fertility
€ Gaining enough weight for a healthy baby while avoiding the risk of excess pounds
€ Gestational diabetes, pregnancy-induced hypertension, preeclampsia, and eclampsia
€ Avoiding premature delivery, caesarean section, and other complications
€ The dos and don'ts of exercise
€ Nutrition: managing your weight while you wait
€ Emotional issues
€ Breastfeeding and postpartum health maintenance

Título 9: Fat Is a Feminist Issue: The Anti-Diet Guide to Permanent Weight Loss

Autor: Susie Orbach

Comentario:

Now reissued, Susie Orbach's classic changed the way women look at themselves. Orbach's non-dieting approach to weight loss shows women how to get off the diet/binge merry-go-round and lose weight through self acceptance. "It is more essential than ever that (it) be read by every American woman."--Susan Faludi, bestselling author of Backlash.

Título 10: Fat!So?: Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size

Autor: Marilyn Wann, Wann Marilyn

Comentario:

YA-The pervasiveness and dangers of anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders are undeniable; recent articles on the subject have appeared in periodicals ranging from People to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Wann, a 5'4", 275-pound Californian, states unequivocally that America needs an attitude adjustment. Fear of fat, she says, supports a $40 billion a year diet industry, destroys both relationships and self-esteem, and engenders "loathing on a national level." Her revolutionary idea? Eat right, exercise, and stop worrying about weight. Being thin doesn't automatically equate with either health or happiness, the author reminds readers. She includes information from physicians, health experts, and medical journals to support her assertion that fitness contributes more to longevity than the "the f-word." The book, named after her Web site and her zine, is an engaging blend of fact and humor. Charts, graphics, photos ("visual counterpropaganda"), testimonials, quotes, ideas for sassy comebacks, and much more can help teens of all sizes reevaluate their view of the "flabulous." Fat! So? is irreverent and thought provoking, informative and fun.Dori DeSpain, Herndon Fortnightly Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this hilarious and eye-opening book, fat and proud activist/zinester Marilyn Wann takes on America's biggest fear--worse than the fear of public speaking or nuclear weapons--the fear of fat

Título 11: Feeding Desire: Fatness and Beauty in the Sahara

Autor: Rebecca Popenoe

Comentario:

While in the West it is said that women can never be too thin, semi-nomadic Arabs in Niger cherish a feminine ideal of extreme fatness. Feeding Desire seeks to explain this ideal by examining it in the context of Islamic faith, local concepts of health and the body, and, not least, notions of sexuality and desire
From the age of five or six, young Saharan Moor girls are required to eat several large bowls of grain or porridge with milk. The result is a voluptuousness thought to beautify girl's bodies, heighten their readiness for marriage, and protect them from health problems. While many of the world's societies have a vision of female beauty that tends toward plumpness, very few actively encourage their women to become as weighty as the Moors (formerly known as Tuaregs). The book explores how fattening is deeply grounded in wider structures of Moor life: devotion to Islam, adherence to patrilineal cousin marriage, and the investment of value produced by men into society's physical and affective center-women and their bodies. Rebecca Popenoe has produced a fascinating investigation of the total social context which produces such an unusual way of thinking about the body.

Título 12: Just the Weigh You Are: How to Be Fit and Healthy, Whatever Your Size

Autor: Linda Konner, Steven Jonas

Comentario:

Now in paperback, the first book of its kind written by a medical doctor, this total fitness guide is for anyone who finds it too difficult to lose weight but still wants to be healthy. North America is in the midst of a backlash against dieting, and many physicians have begun to realize that it is more important to concentrate on total health than solely on weight control. In Just the Weigh You Are, a doctor and a leading nutrition writer guide readers in finding balance in their lives by showing them the path to a healthful lifestyle, regardless of their weight.

Título 13: Nothing to Lose: A Guide to Sane Living in a Larger Body

Autor: Cheri K. Erdman

Comentario:

For all of us who have ever struggled with weight and body image, "Nothing to Lose" offers a way to break the vicious cycle of guilt and self-doubt. Featuring the latest research, practical exercises, and personal stories from dozens of women who have decided not to accept society's "weight problem" as their own, this groundbreaking book offers all the information, support, and encouragement you need to begin accepting your body size and feeling good about yourself, starting now.

Nothing to Lose offers a practical guide to achieving real psychological and physical self-acceptance for women of size. Surveying the history of our culture's attitudes toward women's body size, challenging beliefs about fat with the latest health facts, and suggesting practical tips and exercises for building fitness and self-esteem, Erdman helps readers through the slow, often painful process of healing body shame. Each chapter begins with a personal story of Erdman's own process of body-size acceptance, then explores significant issues such as body image; myth vs. fact about health, weight and dieting; when to consult a therapist and how to choose one; and much more. Erdman has interviewed and worked with hundreds of women and she includes many of their stories here to illustrate the pain, joy, frustration, and triumph that are all part of the journey toward self-acceptance.

Título 14: One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards

Autor: Susan Ohanian

Comentario:

One Size Fits Few is a sharp, pointed pin with which to deflate the overblown pro-Standards movement.

Título 15: Owen Foote, Second Grade Strongman

Autor: Dee Derosa (Illustrator), Stephanie Greene, Dee De Rosa (Illustrator)

Comentario:

Owen, a second grader who is being teased for his small size, discovers that his friend Joseph is just as concerned about being overweight, and they share their fear of being humiliated by the school nurse on the annual weigh-in day.

Título 16: Bountiful Women: Large Women's Secrets for Living the Life They Desire

Autor: Bonnie Bernell, Carmen Renee Berry

Comentario:

In spite of the prevalence of large women in our culture, they are not as visible as the statistics suggest. Where are they? Are they "weighting" until they reach some imaginary right size? Can they live a fulfilling life regardless of their size? In Bountiful Women, psychologist Bonnie Bernell, herself a bountiful woman, answers these questions with a resounding "yes"! This book is both a celebration and a how-to: affirming size while offering strategies for handling challenging situations such as negotiating a tight squeeze on an airplane or fielding judgmental comments about size. Filled with practical ideas, Bountiful Women is about the many choices available to large women today.

Título 17: Larger than Death

Autor: Lynne Murray

Comentario:

Introducing "Jo" Fuller, a woman who's full-figured, full of attitude and always ready to use her sizable sluething skills. Jo's just landed a new job as a philanthropic investigator, checking out potential charities for an eccentric socialite. But just as she gets her feet wet, Joe walks in on a terrible scene. Her best friend Nina--a clothing designer for large ladies--is lying dead in her own apartment.

Could Nina be the latest victim of a killer targeting voluptuous women? Or is the murder personal? When Jo moves into Nina's apartment to settle her affairs and take care of Nina's cat, she encounters a bizarre host of neighbors and an unexpected romance. As fingers point in every direction, Jo races to stop a ruthless murderer from closing in on the big kill.

Título 18: Coma grasas

Autor: Richard Klein

Comentario:

Título 19: Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes

Autor: Laurie Toby Edison, Debbie Notkin

Comentario:

These extraordinary photographs of powerful and beautiful fat women will change your image of beauty forever. The pictures and text combine to send the strongest possible message: We will no longer let society define beauty!

Título 20: Sewing for Plus Sizes: Creating Clothes That Fit and Flatter

Autor: Barbara Deckert

Comentario:

This is the definitive guide for home sewers and dressmakers who wear a size 14 or larger. It is aimed squarely at readers who have basic sewing skills and who use commercial patterns, but do not know how to select designs, proportions, colours and fabrics that enhance and flatter their own unique dimensions and how to adjust standard patterns to accommodate the figure variations that are common to larger women. Everyone looks great in clothes that fit; this is how to make clothes that fit you if off-the-peg options don't.

Título 21: The Invisible Woman: Confronting Weight Prejudice in America

Autor: W. Charisse Goodman

Comentario:

A recent survey of American women found that a great many of them would rather be dead than fat. In every corner of the United States, fat children and adults are subject to ridicule and humiliation. The word "pretty" never applies to them, they are "pigs" "cows" or "hippos," and regardless of their eating behavior, they are viewed as "out of control" compulsive eaters. When it’s time to choose teammates for a game, dates for a dance, or even just friends, heavy women are invisible.
This intelligent, political, feminist treatise explores the all-pervasive prejudice against fat women. It is about shattering the stereotypes, raising awareness about harassment, and asserting the truth that no one has the right to discriminate against anyone based on their size! Goodman exposes our culture’s widely accepted hatred of fat women, from the "health police" who feel that it is their right to approach and criticize strangers about their weight, health, or appearance, to the mass media who perpetuate inappropriate standards of beauty. The Invisible Woman also discusses weight obsession, false assumptions about diet and exercise, the fear and loathing of fat women as sexual beings, disturbing similarities between the aesthetic ideals of the Nazis and America’s quiet extermination of heavy women, and an open letter to men who think fat women are ugly.

Certain to be controversial, this book raises social and personal consciousness at pivotal time the public is finally becoming aware of weight prejudice and women are being encouraged to embrace the body with which they were born.

Great timing! No other book that we have seen examines weight prejudice from a political, cultural, personal perspective.

Título 22: Wake up I'm fat !

Autor: CAMRYN MANHEIM

Comentario:

In this New York Times-bestselling inspirational memoir, Camryn Manheim, Emmy Award-winning costar of The Practice, chronicles her journey from a self-hating, "overweight" teenager, who desperately wanted to fit in, to a self-loving, fat activist who is proud to be a misfit. Wake Up, I'm Fat! shares her intelligent, candid, poignant, and often hilarious stories of being fat in a society obsessed with being thin.

Camryn takes us from her days as a motorcycle-riding hippie in Santa Cruz to her enrollment at New York University's prestigious school of drama--where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner broke the unspoken theater rules of size by casting her in the role of the ingenue--and finally to Hollywood, where she dispelled the fallacy that large women can't be portrayed as sensual, sophisticated, and confident.

Camryn's endearing honesty, sass, and razor-sharp wit will appeal to any reader who has ever felt like an outcast or yearned to make peace with their body.

Título 23: Real fitness for real women

Autor: Rochelle Rice

Comentario:

Women don't have to be thin to be fit," writes Rochelle Rice. Fitness is not about weight, but about the body, mind, and spirit. Her exercise program, designed for the physical and psychological needs of plus-size women, aims to empower women to get active and reclaim the joy of movement. Real Fitness for Real Women emphasizes exercising for the health and psychological benefits--and the pleasure of it!--rather than for weight loss.
Most exercise books, videos, and gyms, frankly, are demoralizing for large-size women. They usually emphasize the goal of slimness, with impossibly slender women demonstrating exercise routines that would be uncomfortable, even risky, for large women. Rice, instead, studied the biomechanics of large women and developed a six-week, 25-exercise program based on their particular needs.

Título 24: Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today's Weight-Obsessed World

Autor: Francie M. Berg, Kendra Rosencrans

Comentario:

Women today are caught up in a body-image crisis, afraid they'll gain weight, afraid they won't lose down to their goal, afraid to fully nourish themselves. They feel oversized in one part or another and wish they were thinner.
The new book "Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in a Weight-Obsessed World," by Frances M. Berg, probes why this is happening at a time when women have more freedom than ever before. What are the powerful forces acting on women that make them feel defective if not thin? How did it happen that a woman's value now is being judged by her degree of slimness, not her talent, insight or generosity?

"Women Afraid to Eat" challenges the social and medical pressures to be thin. It shows in startling detail what the current warped norm for body shape, unachievable by most, is doing to women, how it harms them physically, emotionally and socially. It takes an authoritative look at the many issues that negatively affect eating and weight and how women feel about their bodies.

The book explains why all four of the major weight and eating problems — eating disorders, dysfunctional eating, overweight and size prejudice — have intensified in modern society. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, charges that the risks of obesity are being exaggerated, and the severe risks of eating disorders, malnutrition, and hazardous weight loss are ignored. Manipulation by the weight loss industry adds to the confusion and controversy, says the author. "If this industry made cars, no one would buy them, and if they did, consumer groups would force a recall."

In its second part the book is a handbook for change at both the personal and cultural level. A philosophy shift is advocated that focuses on health, rather than weight. It offers a broad definition of health that includes positive feelings toward our bodies, and helps women reaffirm that they can be healthy at any size. It gives clear and specific guidelines on how women and those who work with women can bring about meaningful change to improve health and well-being. It encourages people to eat well, live actively, and feel good about themselves and others.

The message for women is, "It's time for acceptance. Time for healing. Time to move on to health at any size fulfilling your rich potential in life. Everyone qualifies!"

Berg's companion book "Children and Teens Afraid to Eat: Helping Youth in Today's Weight-Obsessed World," completely revised for 2001, documents even more severe problems for children. Berg who is editor of Healthy Weight Journal advocates a health at any size approach in which adults and children of all sizes receive consistent messages to "eat well, live actively and feel good about yourself and others," based on the Canadian Vitality program. To normalize eating, parents are urged to first end their own dieting, then teach children regular eating habits and to tune in to hunger and fullness signals.

Together the two Afraid to Eat books, both with 21st century copyrights, offer a treasure trove of new information, charts, tips and how-to suggestions. They provide a wealth of research and insight for speakers, writers and students at all levels. Both are highly recommended by health, nutrition and library sources for both consumers and professionals. Excerpts available online at the website... --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Título 25: Life is not a dress size

Autor: Rita Farro

Comentario:

A welcome practical handbook. Overweight women have been trained to be ashamed of their size, hiding inside lumpy sweats and shapeless layers. This can be especially true for teenage girls, who will find scant support at the local mall. Well, "life is not a dress size," says Farro. Instead, careful attention to fit, style, and "that all-important vertical line" can help overcome the fashion barrier that encourages poor self-image.

Título 26: Too Little, Too Big

Autor: Colette Hellings, Dominique Maes

Comentario:

Edith is too little and Arnold is too big. Try as they might, these mice can't do anything to change their sizes. Finally, fed up with not fitting in, they run away from home and find each other. It is love at first sight, and the pair ``lived happily ever after...and loved all their children, little and big,'' proving once again that love conquers all. Although the story is slight and the ending is not only predictable but illogical (the mice go off as children and then abruptly have a brood of their own), this book should appeal to listeners who feel uncomfortable with their sizes. Maes's delightful cartoons capture the humor in the plights of both rodents. The facial expressions are particularly telling, and the details the artist incorporates do much to bring the characters and their surroundings to life. Not a first purchase, but a pleasant bit of whimsy that will make a fun read-aloud.-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, Wheeler School, Providence, RI

Título 27: The Untold Truth About Fatness

Autor:

Comentario:

Título 28: Real Women Don't Diet!: One Man's Praise of Large Women and His Outrage at the Society That Rejects Them

Autor: Ken Mayer

Comentario:

There have been books and magazine articles asserting that our society is dangerously obsessed with a single standard of female beauty, namely that of the thin body. Mayer's book stands out because it is written by a man and is a paean to what he regards as real beauty; strong, large women (preferably well over 200 pounds). Expressing heartfelt pain over tortures that overweight women endure (many were prescribed diet pills by alarmed doctors in their early teens), the book will offer comfort to any woman who falls outside the waif-like ideal. Mayer, a "large-size" fashion photographer and freelance writer, rallies facts and figures that verify that "overweight" women are not unhealthy and promotes the sensible idea that if a woman feels healthy, she probably is. Along the way, he throws in a lot of his own extraneous philosophy and practical tips (for instance, on how to reduce the cost of a home loan), and a veritable diatribe against this country's medical establishment and the destruction of the environment. However, with its arresting title and cover (a beautiful, 200 plus-pound woman, obviously pleased with herself and enjoying life), this book will have wide appeal.

Título 29: Style at Large: Knitting Designs for Real Women

Autor: Carol Rasmussen R. Noble

Comentario:

Carol Rasmussen Noble is a knitwear designer and textile collector who has been knitting since the age of eight. As an author, Carol has written three books with subjects ranging from Fair Isle mittens to Orenburg shawls. She has sold her custom clothing designs and patterns since 1980.

Wear bold, beautiful colors! Find styles to flatter your figure! Feel comfortable in your clothes! These gorgeous wearables for medium to plus-size women are designed to make you look great--and guarantee a fit to make you feel great. • Fourteen patterns are proportioned to fit and flatter women’s sizes Medium to 2X • Projects include jackets, cardigans, and pullovers, plus elegant evening wear • Sleeves and necklines are styled to ensure a comfortable fit

Título 30: Self-Esteem Comes in All Sizes: How to Be Happy and Healthy at Your Natural Weight

Autor: Carol A. Johnson, Gary D. Foster

Comentario:

No more diets! Be happy and healthy at your natural weight! In this completely revised and updated edition of her popular book, Carol Johnson reaffirms her passionate message: you can love yourself and enjoy life no matter what your size! A self-proclaimed "ambassador-at-large," she is positive and encouraging for anyone who is tired of weighing their self-esteem on a scale. Put on your "live-for-today" watch and "stand-on-your-own-two-feet" shoes and enjoy this book! Find out: o The real reasons diets don’t work o Why weight prejudice hurts everyone, fat or thin o How to feel attractive and sexy at your natural weight o How to create your own definition of beauty – in a big way o How to change the goal from thin to healthy.

Título 31: For B. O.W. Only: Beautiful Obese Women

Autor: Rosebud Dixon- Green

Comentario:

Título 32: Just the Weigh You Are: How to Be Fit and Healthy, Whatever Your Size

Autor: Steven Jonas, Barry Estabrook (Editor), With Linda Konner

Comentario:

Now in paperback, the first book of its kind written by a medical doctor, this total fitness guide is for anyone who finds it too difficult to lose weight but still wants to be healthy. North America is in the midst of a backlash against dieting, and many physicians have begun to realize that it is more important to concentrate on total health than solely on weight control. In Just the Weigh You Are, a doctor and a leading nutrition writer guide readers in finding balance in their lives by showing them the path to a healthful lifestyle, regardless of their weight.

Título 33: The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe: And Other Stories of Women and Fatness

Autor: Susan Koppelman (Editor), Foreword by Alix Kates Shulman

Comentario:

A daring new anthology of short stories, The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe features women’s stories on the theme of women and fatness, edited by the award-winning scholar on U.S. women’s short story Susan Koppelman. Spanning from the 1890s through the 1990s, this vital collection explores the many psychological and emotional tensions in women’s -relationships to—and perceptions of—their physical selves. Addressing the peculiarities, the delights, and the shames of body politics that reside in the flesh, these stories of bodies that refuse to be contained deftly and astutely comment on popular notions of acceptable body types and behaviors. Whether celebrating bodies deemed transgressive or simply acknowledging that such bodies exist, these diverse literary representations of fatness render the unfettered body brilliantly.

Título 34: Journeys to Self-Acceptance: Fat Women Speak

Autor: Carol A. Wiley (Editor)

Comentario:

Título 35: Real Gorgeous: The Truth About Body and Beauty

Autor: Kaz Cooke

Comentario:

Título 36: Well Rounded

Autor: Catherine Lippincott

Comentario:

Professional model Catherine Lippincott is sexy, beautiful, confident, successful... and a well-rounded size 16.

One of the fifty million American women who wears a size 12 or above, Catherine Lippincott knows the trials and tribulations of living in a large-sizebody. After years on the weight loss/weight gain roller coaster, she turned her life around -- not by dieting, but by choosing to live happily in the voluptuous body she was meant to have. Now, this gorgeous "plus-size" model shows you how to dress to turn heads, find your signature fashion style and, most of all, to love and respect your beautiful body from head to toe, just as you are.

In Well Rounded, Catherine offers:

Eight simple steps to living joyfully and gracefully, no matter what your shape or size
Body-positive meditations and energy-boosting, mood-improving movements
Invaluable insider tips from Catherine's years as a professional model -- including the fashion industry's big secret to looking fabulous
A simple, tailor-made system of dressing -- it's like a one-to-one personal fashion consultation with Catherine!
Easy strategies for feeling good about yourself now, without losing one pound
A helpful resource guide of clothes and products made just for magnificently contoured women.
Stop trying to change your body. Start changing the way the world sees you, with the book that gives you wonderful results today: Catherine Lippincott's Well rounded.

Título 37: SEXY AT ANY SIZE : The Real Woman's Guide To Dating and Romance

Autor: Katie Arons

Comentario:

Bigger is definitely better, as Katie Arons -- one of the fifty million American women who wear a size 12 or larger, and a world-famous Ford model -- knows. Without a single word about losing weight, Arons offers the encouragement, confidence, and techniques needed to attract smart, good-looking, and successful men. Here, readers of all sizes will welcome the way Katie defies the expectations of a society obsessed with thinness and offers up tried-and-true advice on:

* How to accept yourself as you are
* Where to go, what to say, and how to find the "right" type of man
* The best cities where real women are truly appreciated
* Alternative ways to meet men -- personal ads, the Internet, invitation-only parties (and how to get invited!)
* Style tips: makeup, hair, and clothing
* "How to make love to a man big time"
* Plus lots more!

Título 38: The Fat Girl's Guide to Life

Autor: Wendy Shanker

Comentario:

BWendy Shanker is a fat, healthy, beautiful girl who has simply had enough. Enough of family, friends, co-workers, women's magazines, even strangers on the street, all trying (and failing) to make her thin. She finally decided, "If I can't take it off, I'm going to take it on."

With a mandate to change the world-and the energy to do it-Wendy shows how media madness, corporate greed, and even the most well-intentioned loved ones prey on our shrink-to-fit minds, if not our shrink-to-fit bodies. She invites people of all sizes, shapes, and dissatisfactions to trade self-loathing for self-tolerance, celebrity worship for reality reverence, and a carb-free life for a guilt-free Krispy Kreme.

Wendy explores dieting debacles, full-figured fashions, and feminist philosophy while guiding you through exercise clubs, doctor's offices, shopping malls, and even the bedroom. She believes that you can be fit and fat, even as the weight loss industry conspires to make you think otherwise. The Fat Girl's Guide to Life invites you to step off the scale and weigh the issues for yourself.

Título 39: When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies : Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsession

Autor: JANE R. HIRSCHMAN

Comentario:

In this revolutionary new book, bestselling authors Carol Munter and Jane Hirschmann explore the myriad reasons why women cling to diets despite overwhelming evidence that diets don't work. In fact, diets turn us into compulsive eaters who are obsessed with food and weight.

Munter and Hirschmann call this syndrome "Bad Body Fever" and demonstrate how "bad body thoughts" are clues to our emotional lives. They explore the difficulties women encounter replacing dieting with demand feeding. And finally, they teach us how to think about our problems rather than eat about them--so that food can resume its proper place in our lives.

Título 40: Big Fat Lies: The Truth about Your Weight and Your Health

Autor: Glenn A. Gaesser

Comentario:

In this authoritative, easy-to-read book, Glenn Gaesser, an exercise physiologist, challenges the conventional wisdom that excess body fat poses a danger to health. He explains that it is the fat in your diet — not your weight — that is harmful, and presents scientific evidence of the benefits of body fat. In addition, Gaesser presents a “20/20 program” for achieving optimal health and metabolic fitness through 20 minutes of daily moderate exercise and a complex-carbohydrate eating plan. This edition includes a new introduction and updated research. “Challenges the common beliefs that ‘thin is best’ and ‘weight loss improves health.’ ” — Pat Lyons, author of Great Shape

Título 41: Cómo quitarse un peso de encima

Autor: Sue Dyson

Comentario:

In

Título 42: Ellos las prefieren gordas

Autor: Xabier Domingo

Comentario:

In

Título 43: Kilos

Autor: Valérie Tong Cuong

Comentario:

In

Título 44: Divina

Autor: Francoise Mallet-Joris

Comentario:

In

Título 45: Dick oder dünn

Autor: Michele Didou-Manent

Comentario:

"Bin ich zu dick? Bin ich zu dünn?" - diese Frage nimmt bei vielen Menschen einen hohen Stellenwert ein. Hier ist ein Buch, das die Relativität von Schönheitsidealen in der historischen Perspektive zeigt. Mit witzigen Beispielen schildert ein Team von Fachleuten die Versuche der Menschen, sich den jeweiligen Idealvorstellungen anzunähern und beantwortet die Frage: "Wie befreie ich mich von dem Zwang zum Körperkult?" Denn wer erst einmal weiß, daß Schlanksein durchaus auch als häßlich gelten konnte, hat schon den ersten Schritt in die Freiheit getan

Título 46: Schöner werden wir morgen. Eine Ermunterung, so zu bleiben, wie wir sind

Autor: Ursula Nuber

Comentario:

Genug versucht, genug gelitten! Nach all den Therapien will die Seele endlich mal verschnaufen, und eigentlich haben wir auch die ewigen Diäten satt. Die erlösende Aufforderung, gute Vorsätze über Bord zu werfen und sich mit den eigenen Schwächen zu versöhnen. Diät abgebrochen! Nur vor dem Fernseher gesessen! Aus der Haut gefahren! Sie fassen neue Vorsätze und geloben Besserung? Geben Sie's auf! Die "Veränderungsprediger" wollen uns nur weismachen, wir könnten alle unsere Fehler und Schwächen "wegtherapieren". Aber nicht alles, was wir ändern möchten, kann geändert werden. Und so manches, was uns stört, macht uns erst liebenswert. Deshalb: Was soll das schlechte Gewissen? Seien Sie doch einfach weniger streng mit sich selbst: Jetzt wird gelebt.

Título 47: Meine Überlebenssuppen. Geschichten und Rezepte

Autor: Marianne Sägebrecht

Comentario:

Marianne Sägebrecht lädt uns mit ihrem neuen Buch ein auf eine Reise in die geheimnisvolle Welt der Kräuter und Essenzen und stellt für jeden Monat eine spezielle Überlebens-Suppe vor. Die beliebte Schauspielerin erzählt Episoden aus ihrem Leben, plaudert aus dem Nähkästchen ihrer Film-Erfahrungen und streut - schließlich ist dies ein Buch mit praktischem Hintergrund - Tipps für Schönheit und Wohlbefinden aus dem Kräutergarten ein.

Título 48: Dies ist kein Liebeslied

Autor: Karen Duvet

Comentario:

Eine junge Frau ist auf dem Weg nach London, um eine unerwiderte Jugendliebe ein letztes Mal zu treffen. Im Gepäck hat sie sechs Kassetten, die von sechs Jungen für sie aufgenommen wurden. Ein mißglückter Liebesversuch pro Kassette. Und sie erinnert sich: an Tellerauge, ihren Sandkastenfreund, an ihre Zeit als größtes und dickstes Kind der Klasse und das Froschhospital. An die Demütigungen in der Schule, das qualvolle Familienleben mit dem Nichts von...

Título 49: Starke Frauen

Autor: Herlinde Koelbl

Comentario:

"Starke Frauen", wer denkt da nicht schnell an Karrierefrauen, Ellenbogenweiber oder Spitzensportlerinnen? Weit gefehlt! Es geht um dicke Frauen, um mollige, um pfundige und dazu noch um sehr, sehr mutige Frauen. Denn wer sich derart einer wunderbar sensibel geführten und im wahrsten Sinne hautnahen Kamera hingibt, nackt, ungeschützt, vertrauensvoll, gleichzeitig stolz und selbstbewusst, der ist wohl wirklich im Einklang mit sich selbst. Im Mittelpunkt der fotografischen Arbeiten Herlinde Koelbls steht der Mensch. In diesem Bildband sind es Frauen, "starke Frauen" im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes. Mit ihren Bildern wendet sich die Fotografin gegen die vorherrschende Sicht, daß Frauen nur als Nymphen oder androgyne Wesen schön seien. Die dreizehn Porträtierten zeigt sie als Persönlichkeiten, in denen Leib und Seele eine überzeugende Einheit bilden.

Título 50: Mollig

Autor: Horst Werner

Comentario:

Fotoband mit 141 Seiten, anscheinend aber enttäuschendem Inhalt

Título 51: Dick das Leben leben - ein Buch für Frauen, die Frieden mit ihrem Körper schließen wollen

Autor: Gisela Enders

Comentario:

In Ihrem Buch spricht sich Gisela Enders auf 216 Seiten für die Akzeptanz dicker Menschen aus und ermuntert diese zum "dicken Leben hier und jetzt". Die Tücken der Diäten werden ausführlich erklärt und es wird nachgewiesen, dass ein Leben im dicken Körper einem eine höhere Lebenserwartung und mehr Gesundheit bescheren kann, als ein ständiger Kampf gegen die eigene Statur. Zumal Diäten aufgrund des Jojo-Effektes nicht funktionieren, sondern stattdessen zu einer weiteren Gewichtszunahme aktiv beitragen. Die Autorin geht ein auf den Stress, den dicke Menschen haben und den sie selbst oft aktiv oder unbewußt noch verstärken. Diskriminierungen gegen dicke Menschen, die oft verneint werden oder gar mit Tabus belegt sind, formuliert sie ungeschminkt und offen.

Título 52: Fat and Proud: Politics of Size

Autor: Charlotte Cooper

Comentario:

I was born in 1968, about the same time as the fat rights movement. I have reached maturity alongside the movement, and this book represents a coming to power for both of us.

Much of my life has been spent trying to come to terms with my fat body. I grew up feeling a deep discomfort that I was, and am, physically different to most people in my life, and this difference was always encoded as shameful. As a young woman I nurtured fantasies of slicing off the fat parts of my body. I dieted, and endured periods of compulsive exercising. I wanted only to see the mythical thin woman who was supposed to be hiding inside me. When I became clear that this ghost was never going to put in an appearance I had to find another way of living.

I first began to think of alternatives to fat hatred when I was a teenager. My ideas grew out of my nascent interest in feminism and sexual politics, and also, it must be said, from my disappointment with texts that are still considered definitive. I rejected books such as Suzie Orbach's 'Fat Is A Feminist Issue' because of their false assumptions about fat people. I wanted something more than this.

By the time I began to read books such as 'Shadow On a Tightrope' and 'Being Fat is Not a Sin,' I was not only developing a deeper understanding of fat rights issues, but also working through the difficult process of integrating my ideals into my life. What helped and continues to support e was my increasing awareness of a movement of people and organisations who felt and believed similar things, and were actively challenging fat-hating attitudes. As a feminist I was excited that many of these initiatives were instigated by women. My involvement with the fat rights movement has enabled me to address both the fat hatred around me, and that which existed within myself. It has also given me a space in which to develop my own ideas about what it is to be fat.

Today I feel lucky to be fat. The difference my fatness connotes has been, and continues to be, one of the most challenging and enriching areas of my life. I am very proud of my difference, I feel like a survivor, and I think my perspective as a fat person is a benefaction that has made me special.

Título 53: Fat Girl Dances with Rocks

Autor: Susan Stinson

Comentario:

"[This novel] reads like a good movie with fast paced scenes; crisp language tightly edited for excess and real dialogue. The narrative line rocks with all the smooth rhythm of good back up for the 'very hot' lead characters: seventeen year-old Char and her best high school buddy Felice Ventura...The author Susan Stinson is at her revealing best piling on external detail to create a dizzy, sexy story of female adolescent-teenage desire and discovery." Lambda Book Report, Jyl Lynn Felman

"In this sensual, gently stinging first novel, Susan Stinson's language dreams, drives, and dances, loving the taste of everything it describes in a thoroughly American universe. Char is a character I won't forget, who fills my heart as she begins to take in the immense truth of her own." Joan Larkin

"Susan Stinson's first novel is full of big, beautiful language and her main character, Char, is one of the best teenaged heroines I've ever met. Stinson's writing is music to my ears, and Fat Girl Dances With Rocks makes me want to do the twist!" Judith Katz.

Título 54: Revolting Bodies : The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity

Autor: Kathleen

Comentario:

The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity is a difficult read. It doesn't have the light flair of Fat!So? or the humour of The Fat Girl's Guide to Life. It isn't full of funny cartoons are interesting sidebars. It is a serious look into the history and politics surrounding fat and the people attached to it. Through a series of chapters which read like short essays, LeBesco delves into the world of fat from a different perspective.

Título 55: Live Large

Autor: Cheri K.

Comentario:

I loved this little book. Erdman's voice is not condescending and her concepts are legitimate and easy to understand. You can journal along with each prompt or just use it for bedside or bathroom reading. Each page is filled with valuable insight into our bodies, psyche and the world around us. She doesn't just tell you how it is but how you can choose to make a difference.

Título 56: Yoga Just My Size

Autor: Megan Garcia

Comentario:

No longer exclusive to the sleek and muscular bodies of the world, yoga has become a major form of physical activity for the plus size woman. This past year Megan Garcia, in association with Just My Size (now called JMS) produced a wonderful video for plus size yoga enthusiasts.

Título 57: Zaftig: Well Rounded Erotica

Autor: Hanne Blank

Comentario:

Humans are sexual beings--all humans, not just the skinny ones, not just the straight ones. Sex writer, editor and educator Hanne Blank calls Zaftig a "celebration of those big bodies, those round bodies, those chubby-plump voluptuous-heavy fat bodies of all sizes of large". And indeed it is full of voluptuous and "juicy" feminine bodies. Yes, world, fat people have sex. All kinds of it.

Título 58: Fat Girl: A True Story

Autor: Judith Moore

Comentario:

"Fat Girl" is about Moore's childhood. Low self esteem ruled her life because of her abusive mother and grandmother. Days that were suppose to be filled with laughter, friends and special moments, were filled with routine torments of pinching, hair pulling and name calling. All supposedly because she was her father's daughter. The only sense of well being young Julia experienced was when she ate.

Título 59: What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology

Autor: Donna Jarrell

Comentario:

Título 60: Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe

Autor: Susan Koppelman (editor)

Comentario:

Spanning the 1890s through the 1990s, this unique, daring, and vital collection explores the many psychological and emotional tensions in women’s relationships to—and perceptions of—their physical selves. Addressing the peculiarities, the delights, and the shames of body politics that reside in the flesh, these stories of bodies that refuse to be contained deftly and astutely comment on popular notions of acceptable body types and behaviors. With tender lyricism, acclaimed author Mary E. Wilkins Freeman examines the feelings of an obese woman forced into the humiliating role of circus freak in order to pay off family debt. In “The Stout Miss Hopkins’s Bicycle,” the title character suffers the indignities of the most recent weight-loss craze, only to discover love where she least expects it. For the women in “The Feeder,” eating becomes the only form of control they have in their husband-dominated lives, until they can relate to one another as allies rather than enemies. The confident woman of Hollis Seamon’s title story nurtures her ever-expanding body while providing nourishment to a young woman struggling with anorexia. Even as some women starve themselves to squeeze into socially proscribed roles enforced by the men in their lives, so too do women intentionally and methodically eat in order to burst those same constraints. For some women, fatness is an isolating and powerless position; for others, like Eliza in “A Mammoth Undertaking,” gaining weight is a choice, a self-gratifying process that leads to transcendence. Often witty, sometimes painful, and always revelatory, the stories in this anthology offer a measured assessment of the rules, unspoken and otherwise, that govern women’s bodies. Whether celebrating bodies deemed transgressive or simply acknowledging that such bodies exist, the volume’s diverse literary representations of fatness render these bodies brilliantly, unapologetically visible.

Título 61: Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight Based Discrimination

Autor: Sondra Solovay

Comentario:

Título 62: Weight Bias: Nature, Consequences, and Remedies

Autor: Kelly D. Brownell

Comentario:

Título 63: Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West

Autor: Peter N. Stearns

Comentario:

Título 64: Unruly Appetites: Erotic Stories

Autor: Hanne Blank

Comentario:

Título 65: All of Me: A Voluptuous Tale: A Voluptuous Tale

Autor: Venise Berry

Comentario:

Título 66: The Fat Friend

Autor: Julie Edelson

Comentario:

Título 67: Too Big to Miss: An Odelia Grey Mystery (An Odelia Grey Mystery)

Autor: Sue Ann Jaffarian

Comentario:

Título 68: At Large (A Josephine Fuller Mystery)

Autor: Lynn Murray

Comentario:

Queen-sized investigator Josephine Fuller has an appealing (i.e., not self-deprecating) sense of humor; moreover she's comfortable with her body and confident in her abilities. In her third adventure (after Large Target and Larger Than Death), she wrestles with the murder of her ex-husband's...

Título 69: Fat Girl Dances With Rocks (Coming of Age)

Autor: Susan Stinson

Comentario:

Título 70: Fat Free: The Amazing All-True Adventures of Supersize Woman!

Autor: Judie Mildner

Comentario:

iThe Jude Milner we see within this 64-page black-and-white graphic novel definitely lacks a Wonder Woman-ly sense of confidence. Interior Jude is a self-flagellating supersize woman who regularly browbeats herself with a phrase she first started using as an eight-year-old: she's a "rooner" who consistently "roons" everything. Jealous of the slender women (who she calls "Ginas") around her, addicted to comfort eating and growing larger as she continues to overeat, Jude spends her young adulthood flitting from uncompleted project to project, "partay"ing at NYC dances and social functions put on by the size acceptance group P.H.A.T. (People Honoring All Themselves - a names-have-been-changed version of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance), all in an attempt at tamping down the memory of two disastrous moments from her childhood. (If you guess that one of these events is a sexual assault, than give yourself a Little Debbie.)

Though she marries and presumably is happy with her hubby Richard (who's credited in the inside of the book as "producer/scriptwriter," leading one to wonder just how much of this book is actually in Jude’s words), she continues to lament her life as a fat woman. Seeing two of her supersized P.H.A.T. compatriots with a walker or wheelchair, she dreads what she sees as her inevitable incapacitation. "It's not beautiful to be an obese invalid," she tells herself, even as she imagines herself standing in a firing squad for being a "traitor" to the size acceptance movement. After a series of failed attempts at self-restraint and group counseling, our heroine ultimately resorts to weight loss surgery to change her life for good.

One of the challenges with reviewing confessional memoirs like Fat Free lies in separating the life from the work, and I have to admit I wasn't always able to do that here. Many of the events and details in Milner's life -- childhood sexual assault, use of food to provide a sense of security that circumstances kept her working class parents from providing, a self-perpetuating sense of outsideness — are the stuff of a thousand daytime talk shows, so familiar they've become Doctor Phil-isms. Fat equals history of sexual abuse? Check. Fat people eat all the time? Double check. (In addition to the repeated panels showing Jude compulsively snacking, we're given two scenes showing a group of P.H.A.T. women chowing down.) Fat means miserable. How could it ever be anything else?

That much of Fat Free's readership outside the fat acceptance community would agree with all these overstated premises isn't the point: the issue is that Milner doesn't really show us anything in her life that goes beyond the bounds of conventional pop psych wisdom. Even the book's mildly titillating moments — Jude works as a phone sex voice for a time, chortling over the fact that her customers mistakenly believe they're speaking to a "Gina" -- are overly familiar. (Heck, the phone sex bit was once the subject of a Beavis and Butthead short!) Occasionally, the two Milners hit upon a brief fantasy moment that's amusing – I liked the panel where a disgusted Jude imagines tossing intragastric balloons at a wall of medical professionals – but there aren't as many of these as we'd like. Pre-surgery Jude is much too busy calling herself names.

Artist Mary Wilshire (Wimmen's Comics, Red Sonja, Power Pack) illustrates Fat Free in pencils that aren't always well served in the trade paperback printing. Though Richard Milner includes a special pleading intro explaining the rationale behind the use of pencils instead of more traditional inkwork, I'm not completely convinced by 'em. One thing inking can do is magnify compositional and anatomical flaws – and I suspect a big motivation behind keeping the work in pencil was to obscure how difficult it is to construct a comic story around a realistically fat character.

One of the reasons so many mainstream comic characters have the same basic body form resides in the fact that decades of panels featuring mesomorphic body types has created a visual library of poses for nearly every situation. Fat bodies don't behave so predictably, however, and require the artist's constant attention. (One of the things that makes Jaime Hernandez, say, such a wonderful comics artist is his visual appreciation for a variety of body frames.) More than once, I found myself thinking (as in a panel where a Jude who suddenly seems to have lost her breasts is shown cutting fabric for a short-lived dressmaking business), "Waitaminute, did our girl just drop fifty pounds between panels here?"

Still, Wilshire's pencils are livelier than the material they serve. If many mainstream fans unfairly sneer at autobiographical comics for being solipsistic and whiney, it's hard to hold this book up as a counter-argument. We never get a smidgeon of, say, the wonderfully snippy character details that characterize autobio godfather Harvey Pekar’s best work. Only figure in Free to rise above two-dimensions is our narrator.

Too, at the risk of veering into a tangential argument with our narrator, I had a problem with the way she turned the entire NYC size acceptance crowd into a mass chorus slamming her decisions. To be sure, the issue of weight loss surgery can be a contentious one: many plus-sized advocates criticize it for a variety of reasons (none the least of which is the number of serious complications that they've watched friends and lovers experience), but there are others in the community who've chosen the procedure for themselves. We're never shown that in Fat Free, of course, because aside from caricatures recognizable to them-what-knows-'em (hey, look, there's Ned standin' in a row of would-be dancers!), none of the P.H.A.T./N.A.A.F.A crowd is even given a name.

Título 71: Nothing to Lose

Autor: Erdman, Cheri K.

Comentario:

Nothing to Lose. After years of riding the dieting roller coaster herself - losing and gaining hundreds of pounds - Cheri K. Erdman, a professor and psychotherapist, realized that she wasn't' anymore fulfilled as a thin person and that she, like millions of women, had deferred happiness long enough. Nothing to Lose is for all those women, as well as any woman who has ever struggled with weight and body image, offering the information, support, and encouragement needed toward body-size acceptance. Nothing to Lose emphasizes a way out of the shame and anger associated with being fat with practical exercises, thorough information, and personal stories from dozens of women who have decided not to accept society's "weight problem" as their own, embracing instead Erdman's simple but vital message: You can have the life you want in the body you already have!