Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 25
Fat Beach Day events are springing up across the US in an effort to fight back against fat-phobia, reclaim safe spaces for the community and honor plus-size culture. Today, one of these celebrations is being held to coincide with Pride month at Jacob Riis Beach in New York, a location deeply ensconced in the city’s activism space.
“We’re going through something culturally that is impacting us every day on an individual level and a systemic level,” said Jordan Underwood, the event organizer. “We’re really trying to open up a space for people to be themselves.”
Now, they organize events throughout New York City and work with Berriez, a vintage store “curated for curves” based in Brooklyn, to organize Fat Beach Day.
“I’m so self-conscious at the beach, and I’m never around people that look like me,” said Emma Zack, who started Berriez in 2018. “I’m so excited we’ve created this space for other folks with bigger bodies to have a good time.
Vogue Business reported that in the autumn/winter 2024 season across fashion weeks, only 0.8% of models were plus-size, and 3.7% were mid-size, a notable decline from previous years. A survey published by KFF in May found that about one in eight adults, or more than 15 million people in the US, had used a drug like Ozempic or Mounjaro at some point in their lives, highlighting the extent of this societal shift.
More broadly, New York has, for decades, been at the heart of the fat acceptance movement. In the 1960s, about 500 protesters held a “fat-in” in Central Park, burning diet books and photographs of the supermodel Twiggy, to publicly encourage body positivity and liberation.
In recent years, after organized activism, legislation has been passed to prohibit weight discrimination. New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, signed a bill in 2023 to ban weight discrimination in hiring and housing. Until then, you could be fired in New York for being overweight.
Source: The Guardian
