I'm quoted in Oprah Magazine!

by Marilyn Wann

I remember the moment this quote came to me. I had just published the first issue of the FAT!SO? 'zine. I was designing a postcard to ask indie bookstores to sell copies on consignment. Why should they? Because…

Oprah Magazine, July, 2014. Quotables "Food for Thought" pull-out cards.

It was the summer of 1994, almost exactly 20 years ago.

Since then, everything I've done as a fat activist has been a variation on this quote. In the hope that all of us — all sizes of us — can get on with our lives, free of pointless and prejudicial weight limits.

I've tried all sorts of stuff, much of it delightfully absurd:

• I've been interviewed on CNN, in USA Today, and by Ira Glass.
• I did aerobics next to John Stossel.
• I got to interview Leonard Nimoy about his fat-positive art photography.
• I hugged Wendy from Snapple.
• I gave a FAT!SO? 'zine to Roseanne.
• I spoke at a fat pride rally after Camryn Manheim and Carnie Wilson.
• I learned how to make ratatouille from Daniel Pinkwater.
• I splashed Jay Leno when the Padded Lilies performed a synchro swim routine on The Tonight Show.
• I was, to my knowledge, the first person in fat community to publicly wear a thong bikini.
• I found myself on the median of the second largest street in San Francisco waving a sign that said, "Eat me!" while passing drivers honked and waved, unaware that we were protesting a gym's space alien billboard that said, "When they come, they'll eat the fat ones first."
• I helped win passage of height/weight civil right legislation in San Francisco.
• I waved pompoms with the Bod Squad rad fatty cheer troupe in support of the dyke march and the trans march, and in protest of the weight-loss surgeons' fundraiser, "Walk from 'Obesity.'"
• I was around for the early days of a new academic field called fat studies.
• I lectured about weight diversity halfway around the world. (In Iceland!)
• I got to know pioneers of fat activism and Health At Every Size® — Lynn McAfee; Pat Lyons, RN; Susan Wooley, PhD; Judy Freespirit; Ariana Manov; Gudrun Fonfa; Deb Burgard, PhD; Paul Ernsberger, PhD; Jon Robison, PhD; Cheri Erdman, PhD; Joanne Ikeda, MA, RD; Rick Zakowich; Miriam Berg; Frances White; Sally Smith; Carol Squires; Cath Thompson; Betty Rose Dudley; and so many people who showed me what fat lib could be.
• Years ago, I agreed to have this quote appear on a website of food quotations, where I imagine Oprah's editors found it.

It's been a wonderful 20 years. Thanks so much to everyone I've met! Belly bumps all around…   )(