Tags: age compression, Barbie, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted March 18th, 2012, in Barbie, Creepy Marketing, Princesses, The Weight of Weight, Why I Wrote CAMD | 28 Comments
Yesterday I posted a link on my facebook page to an article on CNN.com called “Fat is the New Ugly on the Playground,” which featured a few nice quotes by yours truly. In response to the post were comments including the following: Excuse me in my experience fat has always equalled ugly on the playground, ain’t nuthin new here, take it from a former fat kid. ‘Fat’ has always been ugly on the playground, or any where else for that matter! I’m not sure why this is all of a sudden breaking news. Absolutely true. Fat kids—boys as well as girls—have long been tormented, demonized and excluded by their schoolmates. In CAMD I talk about the history of American attitudes towards fat—the reasons it came to be seen as a moral issue, a character flaw; how it became particularly taboo for women whose avoirdupois was once considered sexy. Check out an [...]
Tags: Disney, fighting back, pink princess culture camd
Posted February 27th, 2012, in Princesses, The Weight of Weight, Why I Wrote CAMD | 4 Comments
Call it another triumph for parent-power (and the power of all those who love kids). The protests that erupted in the wake of Disney’s Feb 3 launch of “Habit Heroes,” an exhibit at Epcot purportedly designed to combat childhood obesity, resulted yesterday in the exhibit’s (and web site’s) reportedly indefinite closure. Here’s what happened: “Habit Heroes,” developed in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield (who should’ve known better) was an interactive series of games in which kids teamed up with animated “heroes”–Will Power and Callie Stenics (get it??)–to defeat “villains” such as And Stink Bomb who is not only fat but has bad hygiene! Lordy, lordy. Let’s pause for a minute and talk about why shaming fat kids is not just mean but ineffective as a weight-loss strategy (just in case you don’t already know): In a letter addressed to blogger Shannon Russell the director of the National [...]
Tags: girlie girl culture, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted March 20th, 2011, in The Weight of Weight, Why I Wrote CAMD | 10 Comments
Walking by Baby Gap yesterday I was pleased to see the company has broadened its palette of girls’ infant clothing. Some great stuff in black & white (though the one-shouldered ruffled shirt and the eyelet vest are way too Toddlers & Tiaras for my taste). I was feeling pretty good about that until I noticed the “I love my skinnies!” sign in the front window, over a little toddler-sized mannequin. Seriously? Toddlers are all big diaper-butt chubbies. And they are SUPPOSED to be! I do buy “skinnies” for Daisy because she’s tall and lanky and they are the only ones that reach her ankles without falling off of her waist. So they’re not skinny on her. They’re normal-looking. But doesn’t calling them “skinnies” does send the message to kids from toddler to tween that being underweight is desireable? What about the girl who doesn’t fit into skinnies? Is she a [...]
Posted January 14th, 2011, in Stuff I've Written, The Weight of Weight, Why I Wrote CAMD | No Comments
Here’s an excerpt of “CAMD” in Ladies Home Journal. They did such a deft job and I love that it’s not explicitly about princesses, because there is SO MUCH MORE to the book. Really, there is. Thank you, Ladies Home Journal! Fear of Fatness
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