Bloggers Preach 'Fat Acceptance'

Jan. 23, 2008 — -- Lesley Kinzel isn't ashamed of her weight -- in fact, she's so proud of her 300-pound figure she blogs about it daily.

An increasing number of overweight women are turning the blogosphere into the fatosphere, creating blogs like Kinzel's Fatshionista to try to promote the acceptance of fat people, countering the myriad blogs and Web sites that focus only on get-thin tricks and diet fads.

"A lot of fat blogs have popped up to fight against the obesity epidemic hysteria portrayed by the media," Kinzel, who said she started dieting at age 9 but eventually stopped, told ABCNEWS.com. "[Fat bloggers] want to speak for ourselves instead of being spoken for."

And as first reported by The New York Times, Kinzel's blog is in good company. Along with her blog, which focuses on helping fat women find clothing that fits them, her counterparts' blogs include Big Fat Deal, bfdblog.com, and Fat Chicks Rule, fatchicksrule.blogs.com, among several others.

Kinzel said getting teased about her weight was common, and it wasn't until a few years ago, and after years of dieting with little success, that she came to terms with her size, a revelation many overweight people call "fat acceptance."

"[Our blogs] promote fat acceptance, or the idea that people should be able to accept themselves at the size they feel most comfortable," said Kinzel, 31, who said that she rarely steps on a scale. "And that fat people should not be humiliated or made fun of, and that fat people deserve as much respect as everyone else."

Monique van den Berg, creator of the Big Fat Deal blog, weighs 230 pounds and said she blogs to help people understand they can be beautiful at any size and to debunk some of what she called the common stereotypes about overweight people.

"People think all fat people do is sit around and eat ice cream, and that we haven't tried to do anything [to lose weight]," said 32-year-old van den Berg, who blogs from Berkeley, Calif. "I'm blogging to hopefully break some of those stereotypes."