"Bloated and Gloating"

Zuzu just emailed me to tell me to grab a screen cap of ABC's coverage of the Fatosphere, because, as Z reports:

When I was looking for articles on that WLS/diabetes study, I noticed a little link on the Yahoo! News page I was looking at with the following teaser:

ABC News: 'Fat Acceptance': Bloated and Gloating Online.

…If you click the link, you go to an ABC News story that doesn't actually carry that headline on the article ("Bloggers Preach 'Fat Acceptance'"), but it does have that as the whaddayacallit at the very top of the screen, the one that tells you where you are ("ABC News: Fat Is Hot: Bloated and Gloating Online").

Here it is:



Click image to open full screen capture in new window.
The article itself is equally shameful, its lede being: "Lesley Kinzel isn't ashamed of her weight—in fact, she's so proud of her 300-pound figure she blogs about it daily," making it sound as though Kinzel is a personal diarist incessantly singing the praises of her own body, despite her own explanation of what she does five paragraphs later: "[Our blogs] promote fat acceptance, or the idea that people should be able to accept themselves at the size they feel most comfortable. And that fat people should not be humiliated or made fun of, and that fat people deserve as much respect as everyone else."

Then the article helpfully undermines Kinzel's description of the fatosphere as having a cultural imperative by quoting some wanker John B. Horrigan, the associate director of the Pew Internet Group, saying that blogs are chiefly confessional and not about "trying to change people's perspective." Thank you, oh wise one.

And of course the article necessarily ends with ABC's "obesity expert" gravely warning that "Fat acceptance is OK to the point of maintaining self-esteem. But within that context, the health risks are the health risks." Jebus. Way to miss the fucking point.

Nice objectification of a fat female disembodied torso, by the way.