Next thursday, January 26, Food Network is premiering a new show called Fat Chef. Is it the adventures of a chef who happens to be fat? No. It’s a new Biggest Loseresque fat-shaming extravaganza.

Each week we’ll see two fat working chefs who fear that they’re going to die because they’re fat and work around food. Said chefs are put through a sixteen-week course of diet, exercise, and exorcism of  their horrible food issues, whereupon we see them all much thinner, more active, and promising they’ll never be unhealthy fatsos again.

Read this blurb taken from the Food Network site:

For overweight chefs, working in the food industry is a double-edged sword. While indulging their love of food has brought them success, money and respect, it’s also killing them.

That’s right. Eating is killing them. Because they’re fat. And fat people are all automatically dying. Right now.

I saw an ad for the show on saturday while enjoying an episode of Chopped. One of the fat chefs admitted shamefully that she tastes her dishes. Well stop the damn presses for that one! Chef tastes dishes! Clearly that’s why she’s fat! Except that Giada DeLaurentiis does that, too.

See?

And Anthony Bourdain does it, too, as well as eating all kinds of indulgent foods while globe-trotting for the Travel Network and being a sometime guest judge on Top Chef.

In fact, chefs who don’t taste the food don’t stay in business long. No matter what the dish, no matter how many times you’ve made it, tasting remains an important part of cooking. This could well be the night when the dish needs more salt, or less tarragon, or it just isn’t working and you need to start over again from scratch.

At least five times a season on Top Chef you’ll see Tom Colicchio  fix a contestant with his laser beam eyes and ask incredulously: “Did you taste this?” He doesn’t tell the fat contestants that they get a pass because it might kill them to eat one tiny dab of food to see if it’s seasoned properly.

But no, the Food Network knows better! Fat chefs are chefs who have a toxic relationship to food and it’s killing them now! No exceptions! But thin chefs apparently all have perfectly healthy relationships with food and you can tell this by their – wait for it! – healthy weight.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… and again… and again until more people actually hear this: you cannot tell by looking at a person how they eat. You cannot tell by looking at whether a person is fat or thin what the state of their health may be. There is no such thing as a single ‘healthy weight’ that works for everyone. And you cannot shame people healthy.

So no, I have no intention of watching a show that takes people in a highly active line of work (Seriously, have you ever seen a professional kitchen during a busy service? It’s beyond any aerobic workout!) and tells them they’re eating too much, not moving enough, and have serious mental/emotional problems all based on the fact that they aren’t thin.

Suck it, Food Network!

So. Yesterday in my inbox, I found an announcement of Woman Within’s new WW Active line. It’s a collection of activewear, exercise equipment, and blog for fat… er… plus sized women. So far the blog only has two entries, so I can’t say much about it other than it’s got cheerful graphics of straight-sized women and has not yet specifically mentioned weight loss.

While I haven’t seen the clothes up close and personal, I did take a bit of a gander at the offerings on tap to see what I thought of them. Overall, they look practical and comfortable. Most of the pieces do include polyester and/or spandex, but I did find a couple all-cotton shirts, which is nice. Let’s encourage more of that, shall we? And most of the pieces in the collection do seem to include some cotton along with the synthetics.

Most pieces offer color choices, some of them a positively dizzying number, which pleased me to no end. For instance, those yoga pants shown above? come with your choice of twelve color combinations. Okay, all that changes on these is the color of the stripe down the leg, but many pieces come in eight, twelve, even sixteen completely different colors.

Speaking of choices, most of the pants come in petite sizes as well as regular, and quite a few also come in tall. And while the largest size I found among the pieces I actually looked at was 6x – and I only found a couple of those – the size chart tops out at 7x. I have high hopes that that means we’ll soon see attractive, reasonably priced activewear for women up to size 46w/48w. Most of the pieces in the collection seem to go up to 5x, though I did find a couple pantsuits that only went up to 1x. Still, if you’re super sized, there’s a good chance you can find something to wear in this collection. And chances are it will come in a pretty color. I even found athletic shoes up to a 13xww!

Another thing I appreciated was the fact that the line includes exercise equipment. On the downside, nearly half the section is made up of scales and juicers, with only a couple actual pieces of exercise equipment. On the very upside is the unfortunately named Love Handles Exerciser.

What do I think is so great about this machine? Well, basically it consists of two handles which, according to the write up on the site can be attached to nearly any chair or wheelchair. Yes, this site is actually willing to acknowledge that an inability to walk doesn’t necessarily mean you have no interest in fitness.

On the downside of the fitness equipment is the constant talk in the write ups about fat burning, which, I know, is to be expected, but still disappoints my little activist soul. On the even more downside, many pieces of equipment are designed to hold no more than 250ibs. and the treadmill is only rated up to 225lbs. I hope that more equipment for the super sized will become available as time moves on. As things stand, I would break the treadmill, since I’m somewhere in the 240 range.

So yes, there are some downsides. But compared to what has been available for the larger athlete (aka: virtually nothing), Woman Within has done a pretty darn good job, and I applaud them for it.

Oh, and right now? Most of the items in the catalog are on sale. Plus, to sweeten the pot, WW is offering a 20% discount on your entire WW Active order with sales code WWActive20 until 2/28/12.

Let’s support a good effort, and keep our criticisms constructive.

No, I don’t own this purse. But it’s a beauty, isn’t it? It’s the Florentine Toggle crossbody bag by Dooney & Bourke in Natural. You can find it at Nordstrom, along with a lot of other great purses. It also comes in black. I like it. This is a purse I could really fall in love with, use and abuse until we are both old and battered, and still really love.

See, this is what I personally adore in purses. I like something simple, but with good detailing and made of quality materials. I love a good crossbody, because my shoulders are narrow and sloping and I like to have my hands free to use. I like something big enough to carry some serious stuff without being so large it gets in my way.

In fact, my current favorite daytime purse looks a tiny bit like this. It’s actually a mustard-yellow leather, and it doesn’t feature the cool flap and toggle closure this one does. It just zips closed along the top. But it’s a good size, has pockets inside and out, closes securely, and sits perfectly on my left hip when I slip that strap over my head. I plan to carry that sucker until either it dies or I do. I’m like that with purses. I use them hard until they die in harness. Therefore, it behooves me whenever possible to get the best possible purse I can manage.

But everyone has a different idea of what makes the perfect purse. For everyone nodding happily at the concept of simple, capacious, and sturdy… there’s someone out there who’s dream is a tiny clutch with a rhinestone handle. For everyone who couldn’t imagine ever buying any purse that wasn’t a snake or lizard leather, there’s someone like me who would rather juggle all her possessions in her bare hands than do snake.

So I’m curious: what is your perfect daytime purse? Large or small? Leather or denim? Simple or outrageously ornate? There is no right or wrong answer to this. There’s only what speaks to you.

Well my pretties.

Last week I shared this inimitable image with you all:

… and six of you came swinging back with hilarious responses.

You guys didn’t make it easy, but in the end there can be but one winner. This week, said winner is Laura512 for this painfully pertinent response:

#rollercoasterhipster – The Judge Roy Bean was so much cooler before it sold out and went mainstream.

Congratulations, Laura512! And thanks to everyone who played.

Well hellooooo there, everyone! It’s time once again to play Twistie’s Sunday Caption Madness.

You all know how this works. I find a picture that’s simply sitting up and begging for a silly caption or five. You provide said captions via the comments function. Next week I declare a winner and we all hail the conquering hero… virtually.

Today’s picture comes from the ‘wha…? huh?’ file and looks a little like this:

Ready… set… snark!

If you’ve been anywhere on the Fat-o-Sphere lately, chances are you’ve heard about Georgia’s new ‘Strong 4 Life’ campaign against childhood obesity. Don’t even get me started on state programs that use numbers instead of the homonym words they represent. We don’t have the next five years.

Anyway.

The real thing that’s getting my knickers in a major and painful twist isn’t the revolting assault on correct grammar, it’s the fact that this campaign boils down to government sponsored bullying of children ‘for their own good.’

It consists mostly of black and white images and short videos of children talking about their experiences being fat. They talk about being bullied, having no friends, and generally being miserable. And that’s when the message  begins that it’s all their own fault. If only they ate their vegetables instead of deep fried Twinkies, if only they played baseball instead of video games, if only they really cared about themselves, they would be thin and happy and healthy.

What message does that send fat kids who love broccoli and run around outside already? That these things are worthless if they don’t make you thin.

What message does it send fat kids who do eat some sweets and really prefer television to soccer? That they’re lazy, unloveable slobs who don’t deserve to live if they don’t stop what they’re doing and get thin,

What message does it send thin kids who eat some sweets and prefer television? That fat kids must be the laziest slobs on the earth and that they, themselves, are perfectly healthy and therefore morally superior.

What message does it send thin kids who can’t get enough spinach and love spending time shooting hoops? That if they ever eat a slice of birthday cake or spend a couple hours reading they might become fat and disgusting, so they’d better never stop even for a minute. Oh, and if  they bully a fat kid, that’s extra anti-fat brownie points.

What message does it send to parents? That the only thing that matters about their children is whether or not they are thin. That they must bully, restrict, and terrorize their children for their own good.

This makes me want to put on my Fat Avenger Super Suit and go knock some heads together.

Luckily, someone else beat me to the punch. There’s a petition up on Change.org asking the state of Georgia to end this public policy disaster. Regan at Dances with Fat and Harriet Brown at Feed Me have both talked about this petition, but it will take more voices to make change happen.

Sure, you’re just one voice, but yours could be the one that tips the scales. Sign the petition, spread the word. Let’s think of the children.

Every twice in a while dreams really do come true.

Remember way back in November when I wrote up a Christmas wish list? If not, I’ll give you a minute to go back and take another look. It’s okay. I’ll be right here.

Got it? Good.

Four of the five things on that list are still not within my grasp, but they will be one day. One of them, though…

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