Fat Activist to Kellogg's: "Lose Hate not Weight!"

Fat Activist to Kellogg's: "Lose Hate not Weight!"
Creator of original Yay! Scale agrees with taking focus off numbers

5 January, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, California—Leading fat activist Marilyn Wann congratulates Kellogg's for a new ad campaign that tells women not to "focus on numbers on the scale."

"It truly is not what the numbers on the scale read, but how you feel about yourself that allows you to project beauty and confidence to the world," Kellogg's spokesperson Jesper Lund Jacobsen said.

"I couldn't agree more!" said Wann, FAT!SO? author and creator of the original Yay! Scale, a self-esteem-boosting bathroom scale that gives compliments instead of numbers.

Kellogg's unveiled a similar scale in Times Square yesterday. In the company's version, life gains — "confidence," "sass," "pride" — depend on losing weight.

"The vast majority of people will regain lost weight within a year or two, according to decades of medical data," Wann said. "Women of all sizes can feel confident, sassy, and proud right now — without serial (or cereal) dieting!"

Increasing numbers of scientists and medical experts are urging people to focus on health and happiness instead. Good nutrition and exercise habits last longer when they are not part of a weight-loss effort, researchers find. (JADA 105 #6 [2005]: 929-936.) The Association for Size Diversity and Health endorses the approach, called Health At Every Size(SM).

"I care way too much about being healthy and happy to try to get there through weight loss," said Wann, an international spokesperson for fat civil rights. "It's not about settling, it's about celebrating! I hope Kellogg's next ad campaign encourages all of its customers to eat well and enjoy their bodies. Here's a slogan they can use: 'What do you gain when you lose self-hate?'" (The current campaign's slogan: "What do you gain when you lose?")

The original Yay! Scale is available for purchase at www.voluptuart.com.

© Scoop Media