Pleasingly Plump

Heavyweights. Chunky chippies. Beached whale. Obese. Disgusting. If you're overweight, you've heard it all before. If not, you've either said it, thought it, or both. Why?

I'm heavy. Big and beautiful. Sure, there are days when I would like to be thinner but for the most part, I'm happy being me.

A study shows that nearly 63.6 million Americans can be qualified as overweight or obese. 35 million of those people are women. So why am I slamming you with statistics? How many actresses are heavy? I can name a few--and only a few--Queen Latifa and Conchata Ferrel, Kirsten Vangsness.

(Unlike the majority of the universe thinks if you were a 14 or under you are NOT considered overweight, plus sized or whatever.) Thanks to retail shops placing size 14 and over in the plus department of their stores more girls than ever are becoming or are anorexic. And the fashion industry is pushing this to the extreme--again.

In romance novels, movies, in television shows, there are so few overweight women it's irritating. And I'm just as guilty as everyone else. My heroes are smaller for the most part. (Sizes from 16 to 10 actually.) So I'm preaching to myself as well.

What pisses me off even more? These shows like Entertainment Tonight who dress girls in "fat suits" and send them out in public. Oh they come back crying and railing against how unfairly they were treated. Hello! We live with those reactions everyday. Those skinny ass girls can strip off their suits and have people slobbering all over them. To me this is extremely insulting. They aren't doing anything about the sometimes cruel treatment of overweight people. If anything, they are spotlighting hot issues that already hurt some people--myself included. They don't know what its really like.

Overweight people get it from all sides. In public we're ignored, shunned, mocked, and insulted. At the doctor's offices were lectured about being heavy. Sometimes even the doctor's can be cruel. "You wouldn't feel like this if you lost weight." "You could breath better if you weren't so heavy" "You wouldn't suffer depression if you lost weight" "You're morbidly obese and thats why you can't (insert something horrid here)" I was into a doctor's office and before he even introduced himself to me he asked "How long have you been fat?" I almost asked him how long he'd been ugly but I refrained.

In the entertainment industry, we can find no one who really represents us as a part of the population. In the fashion industry, we’re over charged and under appreciated.

Why is it only the skinny women get the hot guys? I'd love to see some hunk get a large woman as a love interest. (Hear that Numb3rs people? I'm available for Colby Granger's girlfriend. Or I'll take Don Epps, I'm not picky.) There are so many actors to choose from.

As an example, there was an episode of CSI that seemed promising. In the episode, there was a group of heavy weight people and one of the women had a crush on Grissom. He was polite, not condescending, and kind. There was the perfect opportunity to allow a heavy woman portrayed in a positive light. Instead, they seemed to poke fun at the overweight. The CSIs were investigating the death of a man who was smothered by the heavy woman he’d had sex with earlier. How insulting!

If there had been references to particular ethnic race, people would have screamed in protest. If it had been religion based, more protests. But because it was a fat person, it was okay.

I'm just sick of the discrimination, it's time for a change. Victoria Secret models be damned!

The Overweight and under appreciated Donica Covey