Fat!So?

Last night I had the opportunity to hear Marilyn Wann, the author and founder of the zine (a small, private magazine) Fat!So?, speak about "fat empowerment". Marilyn is a fat woman who has come to accept her body and love herself, despite her size. She travels all over challenging social stereotypes about fatness and encouraging others to stop fat discrimination. The first issue of her zine, FAT!SO?, came out July 1994 when she was inspired by a really bad day to come out about being fat. On this day, she was out with a guy she was dating and he told her he was embarrassed to introduce her to his friends because she was fat! Wow…how insensitive and horrible is that?? On this same day, she received a letter from Blue Cross of California denying her health insurance because she was considered “morbidly obese”. It was great to hear Marilyn’s story and her passion to lead our society into a non-fat hating one little by little.