We've had quite a few posts by Marilyn Wann in the sub lately, and a lot of newer users aren't familiar with her, so I thought we should do a quick refresher. A lot of the content of this post is taken from /u/The_Crisco_Kid's excellent summary By Request: Marilyn Wann Roundup.
Marilyn Wann is a fat activist who has been involved in FA since the early 90s. She was a board member in NAAFA and is probably most well-known for publishing the FA "bible" Fat!So? in 1998, based on her magazine of the same name. Almost all the standard FA talking points can trace their origins to this book, though it is all collected from older sources. She also created the "Yay! Scale", a dial scale with all the numbers replaced with compliments that she sold for $45, which hilariously has a weight limit of about 280 pounds.
If you want to know what kind of person Marilyn is, an incident from 1997 tells you everything you need to know. 13 year old Christina Corrigan died of heart failure weighing 680 pounds, surrounded by fast food wrappers and covered in months-old feces and urine and over 100 bedsores. Firefighters found her body sprawled out in her mother's living room, naked other than a filthy sheet. She hadn't been to school for over a year, hadn't left the house for several months, and hadn't been moved for days. When her mother was put on trial for child abuse, Marilyn took the opportunity to protest in the courtroom with her fellow fat activists and NAAFA buddies, handing out copies of her magazine and taking interviews outside where she said it was fatphobic to prosecute the mother.
http://articles.latimes.com/1997/dec/26/news/mn-2357
> "If the child in this case had been an average-size child, I don't believe there ever would have been a case," said Marilyn Wann, a self-described "fat rights activist" who attends the trial in support of Corrigan. "There would have been sympathy for the mother. 'Wow, your daughter died. That's too bad.' "
> Wann, who edits a zine called FAT!SO?, handed out copies of her hot-pink publication in the courtroom and granted interviews in the hallway.
>"Our society is interested in the spectacle and the freak show," Wann said. "It's not really interested in helping fat ch
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More Marilyn Wann facebook lunacy: a long thread about how to cheat on a company-sponsored fitness challenge while wearing a FitBit. I just had time to cut/paste a brief exerpt.
Fan My best friend showed up to dinner the other night wearing one. She said her company gives her a discount on her insurance premiums [i]f she completes a minimum number of "steps" each day. But the technology is flawed because she can just wave her arm around and it counts it as 'steps' yet her favorite elliptical machine at the gym doesn't register any because the arms are stationary. (Note: I, OP, have a FitBit. Her claim is false. You can add that workout on your app after the gym.) So she spent dinner shaking her arm up and down, and also musing on ways she could trick the arm band, from attaching it to her ceiling fan to putting it on her cat's collar. (She will succeed in hacking this. She's an engineer.)
Marilyn Wann Does it require a warm body to be attached to? I was thinking: rock tumblers set at the right speed.
Fan She's also going to see if she can extend it to fit on one of her larger, more active cats. The only cat it would fit is tiny and old and just lays around all day. LOL
Marilyn Wann One possible solution: [a link to a FitBit Cheat-O-Matic machine]
Fan Yeah, she tried the ceiling fan and it didn't work. So she was thinking of putting it around her heating pad, and then attaching that to the fan somehow. Seriously, she WILL figure out a way to hack this thing. It's a challenge to her now.
Marilyn Wann I'm glad an engineer is on the project! Please let me know about any results, [name]. Lots of people in fat community are going to need that info.
Marilyn Wann Why is more steps better? Why do people want external tracking or pats?... I'm asking why our society thinks more steps are better. I'm concerned about the ableism.
hey fellow triangle folks! Just letting you know, well, as the title says, that there will be a plus size clothing swap and social with featured guest Marilyn Wann, author of Fat!So? in Greensboro on Nov 10th. if you're interested then PM me and i'll get you the info. :) there will be food, drink, door prizes, and of course, one of the mother's of the 90's fat acceptance movement. If you haven't read her book yet go ahead and grab a copy (used copies abound!) on amazon and get her to sign it! hope to see some of y'all there :)
Fat, sassy and active is possible at stable midsized weights. most of the women at the Fat Ladies Traveling group were midsized and looked like they could maintain a life, though some better focus on weight stability to make sure this does not change. Rebecca however is near disability, and large enough to be disabled if she is not very soon. I could wear Rebecca's clothing, I have more of a hanging stomach from my fatter past. She looks like she weighs in the high 400s to even low 500s. My own disabilities are complex, medical people are decent to me, and they admit I have a lot going on. I have CFS and complex autoimmune problems most people have never heard of even beyond the Lipedema stage 4. Add in autism. Autism and autoimmune diseases go together too. I am seeing a nutritionist for the extreme uric acid and focusing now on getting more help. The rehab and clinic thing is complicated. I may ask for some physical therapy too and have needed it on and off during my life. I also think I need to go back to the gym and have to talk to doctors about Covid dangers and what they think.
One issue for me in the size acceptance world, if anyone here sees old posts on my blog from 10 years ago, is I used to complain too many of them denied the health effects of severe obesity. I got into an argument with Marilyn Wann, and told her to go see a bariactric nursing home, I told her then, I am 700lbs and I am dying. I would throw it in her face now if I ever met her, and say your messages denied my reality, I did have many things wrong and I went on to live for 25 plus more years.
Whitney doesn't know it but she is very close to being disabled. 50 more lbs and she may not be able to walk. I was very tall, almost 6 feet when young so could carry a lot more weight. I lost a massive amount of height and am only 5 foot 7 inches now. Whitney is short as hell so 400lbs on her, would be equal to 500lbs on a taller person.
Her body is breaking down you can see it, and age worsens this. One thing that is unusual about me is I am into health food, and will not eat processed food, desserts, or "normal American food", I think I already would be dead. I don't see Whitney eating vegetables, salads or cooked food, but microwaved crap out of cans.
She could lose her show, from a health crisis alone, a hurt leg, cellulitis bout, or other health issue. She can't keep up now, and age alone will end all the feigned athleticism. She could end up on a walker too. I think she needs
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For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂
They’re on standbi
Pilot on me!!
A lot of people here have not heard of Marilyn Wann, because she is an older fat activist whose online presence is mostly limited to facebook. She was an officer in NAAFA (The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance), is the creator of the "Yay Scale," and published the FA bible, Fat!So? in the 90's. If you wonder where so many FAs came up with the same talking points, look no further than Marilyn's book.
Someone asked for more info about her in the Most-Disliked FAs thread, in reference to this story:
> When Christina Corrigan died at 13 years old, weighing 700 pounds, surrounded by fast food wrappers and covered in feces and insects, her mother was tried for child abuse. Christina had not been to school in a year, had not been out of the house for three months, had not moved for days from the spot where she died. Marilyn Wann stood outside the courtroom, selling copies of her fat-acceptance magazine, saying that it was fatphobic to try the mother.
> Wann said, "It's not a crime to be fat, and it's not a crime to have a fat child," and "If the child in this case had been an average-sized child, I don't believe there ever would have been a case. There would have been sympathy for the mother. Wow, your daughter died. That's too bad."
She reposted this quote on her facebook: Being proud of weight loss is being proud that you have sufficient privilege to move from the oppressed to the oppressor category. -- Stef Maruch
She actively discourages her supporters who are considering losing weight for health reasons. In addition to the usual claims that they will be unsuccessful anyway, she has said the following:
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"I tend to think of people as investing in weight-loss goals, for whatever reasons, by whatever means, [as] contribut[ing] to the yuck that I want to end."
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"Aiming in the direction of weighing less (even from 500 pounds to 400 pounds) is an investment in a weight-centric worldview. So I'm not impressed by the "I'm still fat" cover story."
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"So why do you need to tell people here that the only way to improve arthritis pain is for you to lose weight. What about all the fat people with arthritis who want a weight-neutral answer for arthritis pain?"
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"Weight-loss goals reinforce a system of social injustice."
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"I just basically consider it unethical to encourage any human being to undertake a weight-loss goal."
