• Conan O’Brien is the subject of pissy Tweets by plus-sized actresses Kirstie Alley and Star Jones after cracking jokes about Alley’s size. Example? A recent earthquake drill in California might have just been a response to Alley jazzercising. [New York Daily News]—Ah, fat jokes: the province of lazy comedians. Maybe he could mix up his repertoire and do ugly jokes, too? And for her part, maybe Alley could practice what she preaches and stop drawing so much attention to her own weight.
• An analysis by George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services found that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to Obama’s health care reform bill would “produce industry-wide effects, leading to the elimination of health plan coverage for nearly all medically indicated abortions.” The GW study arrived at this conclusion after examining how “the health benefits services industry adjusts its products over time to conform to the regulatory environment in which it operates.” [George Washington University Medical Center]

Hey, Frisky book lovers, have you heard about “bigger chick lit”? Pissiness over a poochy tummy is a sub-plot in plenty of books, most notably Bridget Jones’s Diary, but the Guardian says “bigger chick lit” novels feature a “young woman who is seriously overweight—and doesn’t care.” And apparently, they’re all the rage.

I don’t know about you folks, but for me, a weekend with the rents is always fraught with tension. Is Mom going to pester me about brushing my hair? Is Dad going to ask me how much money I’m saving? Will they bristle if my boyfriend and I sleep in the same bed?

But I didn’t see Sunday morning’s battle royale coming at all.

Mom and I were hanging out in her bedroom; she was smoking a cigarette and I was scratching my cat behind the ears. Then Mom furrowed her brow, scrunched up her face and examined my pajamas-clad body. “You know, Jess,” she remarked, “you’ve put on some weight.”

My eyes bulged. Fire was breathed. Thunder boomed. Lightening crackled. The cat cowered in fear under the bed.

One summer during college when I worked at coffee shop, a man with special needs—I think he had Down’s Syndrome—used to come up by the cash register and chat with me all the time. We were shooting the breeze one day and I was standing with my pelvis leaning against the counter, sort of slumped forward. He looked down at my stomach and asked me, “Jessica, are you pregnant?” My eyes widened and I stood ramrod straight, sucking in my belly. “Nooo! I’m not pregnant!” I shrieked. His face flushed with embarrassment and he apologized profusely. And I, of course, felt like an ass for making him feel bad.

Flash forward to Sunday afternoon on a shopping trip to Sephora, when the cashier ringing up my Bliss Spa Best Of Skintentions moisturizer looked down at my stomach and exclaimed, “Awww, are you pregnant?”

Cringe.

Plastic surgeons have reached a truly DIY medical breakthrough in Britain: cutting fat from a woman’s thighs and tummy and pasting it on her titties. Ladies who allow surgeons to play Mrs. Potato Head with their breasts can potentially shoot up three cup sizes. The “two-in-one op,” as it’s being called, will be widely available in Britain next year for around $13,000 and is currently being tested in the U.S.

It’s true that these so-called “natural breast enlargements” don’t involve the dodgy silicone used in most boob jobs, which has been known to harden over time and feel fake. But it’s still plastic surgery, which isn’t “natural” at all! Besides, how much would it suck if the layers of fat that the doctor redistributed from your thighs turned out to be the dreaded cellulite and it made your tits all wrinkly and pucker-y? Is that really worth a C-cup, ladies? [Times Of London]

A Pennsylvania mother is suing her daughter’s school system because she said classroom bullying caused her daughter to develop anorexia.

The lawsuit alleged that in 6th grade, three boys called the girl “fat” and two more boys joined the taunting during her 7th grade school year. One year later, the girl checked into an in-patient program for an eating disorder. The family is suing Pittsburgh Public Schools because she said the school’s guidance counselor failed to deal with the alleged bullying, which would likely make it the first lawsuit of its kind. [CBS News]

A PETA billboard in Jacksonville, FL, calls larger women “whales” and urges them to “lose the blubber” by going vegetarian. 

PETA’s press release on the billboard says “going vegetarian can be an effective way to shed those extra pounds that keep [women] from looking good in a bikini.” Oh, God, now even billboards are judging us?

Insults and fat-shaming aren’t tried-and-true ways to encourage tofu instead of burgers. But something tells us that wasn’t the point: Bigger women were the ones chosen to be dehumanized so this cruel, sexist billboard could get some chuckles. Gross. [via Feministing]

Really, people? We’re still talking about Surgeon General Regina Benjamin’s weight? This week, Michael Karolchyk, the owner of a gym, appeared on FOX News to voice his opinion about why Benjamin has no right being considered for Surgeon General. Luckily, Neil Cavuto took him to task, but Karolchyk still got in zingers like, “Just because you eat a lot of dinner rolls doesn’t make you a role model.” Oh, and did I mention that during this whole appearance, he wore a shirt that read, “No Chubbies?” How cute! And when I say “cute,” I mean, “Can I punch this guy in the face?”

This whole Benjamin debate has got me thinking—are we heading towards a size war? Is this the 2009 version of the gender, class, race, or sexual orientation wars?

A South Carolina woman is being charged today with criminal neglect, a felony that could land her up to ten years in the slammer. Why? Because her 14-year-old son weighs 555 pounds. The kid’s mother, Jerri Gray, was poor and often had to work back-to-back shifts, so her son was home alone a lot. Gray claims there wasn’t a lot of junk food in the house, but that her son was stuffing his face in school, eating several lunches each day and feasting on snacks given to him by his friends.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy…was he?

Why can I still recite this nursery rhyme by heart even though I’m 25-years-old now?

Because I have hairy arms and my mom unwittingly drilled the rhyme into my head by teasing me about being her little “fuzzy wuzzy.” Yeah, kids remember what their parents said to them. I’m a testament to that.

But even I thought the Babble.com advice columnists who discouraged a lady against calling her toddler “Chubby Chubs” and “Greedy Guts” were overreacting.

In many ways, the Gossip lead singer Beth Ditto is simply the s**t. She’s a big, bad ass lesbian who’s got to be more comfortable with her body than pretty much anyone I know. That said, I’ve got to agree with British GQ features editor, Alex Blimes, in his incredulity at Ditto’s fashion “icon” status. Blimes was a complete ass about it, calling my favorite plus-sized and proud singer a “porker,” but I’m with him on the main point: Ditto’s style is none-too-special.

Oh, no! We forgot to celebrate our new favorite holiday, International No Diet Day, on May 6th!

But it’s cool. We can still score some body-image karma by grabbing a copy of Lessons From the Fat-O-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce With Your Body by bloggers Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby.

Both women call themselves bloggers of the “fat acceptance movement,” Harding at Shapely Prose and Kirby at The Rotund. These cool ladies critique our society’s obsession with skinny bitches and cover topics like how most diets don’t work and how women can be healthy at lots of sizes, not just when they’re Olsen-twin thin.

Maybe you want to buy it to empower a bigger woman in your life—or maybe you’re the bigger woman who wants empowerment. In any case, we’re really excited when anyone acknowledges what real women look like. [$13.95, Lessons From The Fat-O-Sphere]

“American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest and British chef Jamie Oliver have announced they’re teaming up for a big challenge. In their upcoming reality show that’s expected to hit the airwaves next year, the dynamic duo plans to battle obesity in the U.S. Oliver is going to hit the “fattest cities” in an attempt to salvage their diets. Clearly, they’ve got a superhero complex, but aren’t they going to give the rest of us a real complex?

Finally, a weight loss strategy that requires me to do absolutely nothing! From now on, your fat will make you thin. According to three papers published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, humans are filled with “brown fat” (gross) which burns calories at super speed.  [WebMD]

Our society has a lot of thoughts about what women should be, and many of these ideas have to do with weight and promiscuity. The ideal is that a woman is thin and pure. In an article on The Huffington Post, writer Charlotte Hilton Andersen considers whether it’s better to be called a slut or fat—two names that women usually don’t enjoy being labeled. So, which would you rather? Justify your choice in the comments!

I’m fat. I have gigantic ta-ta’s and a fat ass(et). While I didn’t always see it as such (high school was rough), as an adult, having all those extra mouthfuls has certainly come in handy—just ask my boyfriends.  But okay, I’ll admit it; being a large lady, I’ve worried about the possibility of suffocating a man to death while sitting on his face. Gasp! Can you imagine me on the local news trying to explain that crime against nature?! But do you know what is a worse fate? Being inhibited in the sack just because you’re a big, beautiful woman. That would be the real shame. With that in mind, I am all for some female empowerment for my fellow fat chicks!  However, I should qualify that statement by saying it sucks twice as hard when “sexperts” pretend to be supportive and then dish out condescending advice.  A perfect example of this mean girl tactic is The Sun‘s “Big Girl’s Guide To Sex.” It sounded promising, but in reality, the article features bedroom tips on how to make yourself look thinner, as if that really means sexier. Well I call bull tit! More, after the jump…

I hate diets. While Americans spend billions of dollars a year making themselves miserable trying to loose some extra weight, I eat cake, wear bikinis that clearly show my stretch marks, and try to keep a healthy attitude about my appearance. Sure, sometimes my muffin top gets to me, but dieting just seems like a form of self-hatred when it involves eating pre-packaged low-cal food.  Yuck!

But just like technology, Japan seems to have one up on us in the dieting category.  In an article in fitness magazine, Fytte, Japanese women submitted the top 10 weight loss programs that worked for them. Much to my surprise, they actually sound fun.  From #4—Pelvis Exercises that include hula hooping—to #8—taking a bath in scented salts for 45 minutes a day—slimming down never sounded so good!  Who knows, maybe I’ll finally cave on this dieting stigma and learn to put my tummy to good use with belly dancing.  [Calorie Lab]

We have some news for Tyra Banks—a size eight dress isn’t plus size and America’s Next Top Model winner Whitney Thompson ain’t no fat girl charity case. The new “plus sized” model is on the cover of the June issue of Seventeen, sending the message to America’s highest risk group for eating disorders that a perfectly fit size eight means you’re a big girl. Adolescents already have enough body issues without a thin girl getting called thick. This is some major mean-girl fashionista bull crap. If you’re gonna give us a plus-size superstar, she better be big enough to play the part. [Bitten & Bound]

There’s a new queen in England, and she’s got more poise than Her Majesty and more cleavage than Elton John. It’s 17-year-old, size 16 beauty queen Chloe Marshall! She’ll be strutting her stuff in the Miss England Pageant in July, but she’s already become a media darling. “What I am promoting is a healthy girl who looks after herself and doesn’t try to force her body to be something its not,” Chloe told Hello Magazine, which was excited to get her to slip into something less comfortable—the white rhinestone bikini she’ll be confidently wearing in the competition. Proudly flying in the face of skinny minnie pageant girls like the tragically dumb blonde Miss Teen South Carolina,  Chloe is a refreshingly smart spokesmodel who is bravely going where no plus-size girl has gone before. This pretty warrior princess couldn’t be happier to show off her ambition. “It’s what I was born to do – posing for the camera. And as I keep saying, I love my body. People seem desperate to get me to say that I don’t, that deep down I’m not happy and would rather be thin, but the fact is I wouldn’t change myself at all.” We wouldn’t change a thing either, hot stuff! [Dlisted]

When you’re Elvis’ daughter, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches are in your genes, but such a tasty lineage means that you’re, unfortunately, going to be made fun for the way you look in your jeans. Lisa Marie Presley has been blasted in the press for her recent weight gain, with headlines like “Lisa Marie Presley Has Become A Fat Slob Just Like Her Dad” splattered across the tabloids. But it turns out she’s pregnant, not fat!  Sources close to the R&B royalty say although she’s not one to blab about such things, she’s going to have her third child with her fourth husband, rocker Michael Lockwood. Chew on that, paparazzi!