I've mostly lurked in the past, but now I look forward to participating in discussions here.

I'm loving this blog, btw!

I love it when people are already making the points I want to make.

I would add that focusing on appetite-regulating hormones is predicated on the belief that A) obesity is always caused by overeating and B) people overeat because they're hungry.

Neither is true across the board. Some fat people eat no more than average-weight people. Other fat people are compulsive overeaters, for whom appetite has little to do with the urge to eat. Assuming appetite control is the magic bullet is ridiculous. Dexatrim hasn't ended obesity, and one can safely assume that leptin-spiked baby formula won't either.

I sincerely doubt that Tracy Clark-Flory is unaware that The Onion is satirical, although some of the commenters seem to be. To me, the question read as "Funny--or more sad, given that satire by definition is based in truth?"

And my answer is: hilarious, in a way that kinda makes me want to cry.

I particularly like the "Think of the children!" responses. Perfectly fine to let 8-year-olds see pictures of severely wounded people being carried away after a deranged killer has terrorized a classroom--that's not gonna cause any nightmares. But oh, how will I ever explain an imaginary penis?

Can we stop talking about what did or didn't happen TO her for a minute and start talking about what this man DID? He walked in on a sleeping woman, undressed her, and had sex with her, all the while knowing she thought he was her brother--and she would not be having sex with him if she knew who he was. How is that anything but non-consensual sex?

Rape is not something that happens to a victim because of mysterious outside forces; it is something human beings actively do to each other. This man decided he was going to have sex with this woman, knowing full well she wouldn't consent to have sex with him. That certainly makes him a rapist in my book.

that should be "his brother," not "her brother." The way I wrote it makes it a whole different kind of creepy.

I'd like to thank all the outraged citizens in this thread for reminding me that everything people of color say in anger about white people is still true, much as I'd rather it weren't.

I'm white, and I hang out mostly with liberals in an urban environment. So in my real life, I almost never get to see white people talking this kind of horseshit. Every white person I know would have laughed and clapped at Oprah's statement, even the ones who can't stand her. It was funny, it was right on, and it was totally appropriate in context.

But boy, there are still a lot of ignorant jackasses out there wetting their pants over black people with power and insisting on a concept of "fairness" that completely ignores institutional inequality. It's good for me to be reminded of that, so I don't become complacent about my privilege.

How does Dickerson propose to make these fat women thin?

Almost everyone who diets gains it all back within five years. Study after study shows this. And the studies that claim to show sustained weight loss are inevitably talking about one or two years later, not five.

We've known this for years. There is no information whatsoever on how to keep weight off for over five years, because researchers cannot find enough people who've done it. On the rare occasion when they set up a study to last for five years, they don't learn anything useful, except that most of their subjects end up right where they started. (http://www.reuters.com/article/gc08/idUSN3036700020070402?pageNumber=1)

Scientists and doctors have no idea how to make fat people permanently thin. But boy, that doesn't stop people from insisting that they know what the problem is: pork chops and laziness! And the cure, obviously, is shame!

'Cause you know, no one's ever tried that before. If there's one thing you can't find anywhere in this culture, it's a fat person who's cripplingly ashamed of her body. And obviously, hating yourself is the best first step toward becoming healthier. We need to teach the poor, ignorant fatties these truths!

Because we care about their health

The most disturbing part of this to me is that several of the articles completely fail to mention that Jenny Masche suffered acute heart failure shortly after the delivery. http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/13/sextuplet.mom.ap/

It's a miracle! It's amazing! It almost killed the mother!

Wait, shh about that last part.

I skimmed the part where THIS article mentioned the heart failure.

But still, several others didn't, which kills me.

Does a fat woman have the right to be a mother? It's not a question with any easy answers

Actually, it's a question with one very easy answer: yes.

If you have any more questions about fat women, feel free to ask.