Free Republic

In her post on social media, a thirty-six-year-old woman wrote about her experience flying back from Thanksgiving weekend at her parents. As a plus-sized woman, the Original Poster (OP) was accustomed to booking more than one seat on most public transportation. For her early morning flight back home, she spent extra money and booked two adjacent seats “so whoever had the third seat in [her] row would not have to be squished up in [her] business.”.... A gentleman approached and tried to sit his pre-teen daughter in the “empty” middle seat—where OP said that her “bum was taking up a...

In American culture, it's bad to be fat. Rarely is this more apparent than at the start of the new year, when diet culture, fat phobia and capitalism converge. Exploiting body shame and people's desire for renewal, weight loss companies ramp up ads, gyms reduce rates and diet companies promise to help people realize the elusive goal of weight loss that lasts.Sociologists and medical professionals who treat patients using a model of health at every size say this yearly cycle underscores society's obsession with thinness and fuels dangerous misperceptions about the relationship between weight and health."I tell patients right off...