BlogHer Moves Towards Fat Acceptance

You may have heard of BlogHer, an annual conference for female bloggers. Last year we learned that Weight Watchers and other diet talk was present at the conference, particularly distressful. The good news is that it looks like there has been some progress on this front for this year's conference, which is in Chicago next month.

Laurie Toby Edison has been invited to be on a body image panel and is inviting comment on what topics she should cover.

I’m planning to talk about body image in the broader sense. Obviously I’ll be talking about the issues of fat, beauty, power and health at any size - but body image (as folks who read us know) includes a lot more. When the beauty standard is young, blond, white and thin, it leaves almost all of us out. It leaves most women and men feeling “never attractive enough”, causes endless discrimination, and makes billion$ for the beauty and diet industries. There is so much we can talk about - fat/size, aging, ability/disability, color, “right” facial features, class, children.

Edison also posted the panel description - for your reference:

There are weight-loss blogs, and there are healthy eating blogs, and there are fat acceptance blogs. The one thing they have in common: a lot of them are written by women. While a lot of them get support and positive reinforcement and encouragement from their readers, a lot of them also get some really strong reactions from people who don’t want to hear about women dealing with body image – and don’t want to worry about whether or not society is “responsible”, for everything from obesity to anorexia to the pressure to conform to some unattainable ideal. Can blogging be the perfect vehicle to expose and break unhealthy influences…and build a healthy identity that isn’t tied to how we look? Jenny Lauck moderates this conversation with Laurie Toby Edison, Wendy McClure and Yvonne Marie, who are tackling the touchy topic head-on.