Today's Fat & Happy Music:  "Happy Being Fat" (Big Dee Irwin), "Homegrown Tomatoes" (Guy Clark), "Dorothy & Eve" (Cosy Sheridan), "Everybody Eats When They Come to My House" (Cab Callaway), "Shortnin' Bread Rock" (The Collins Kids), "Saturday Night Fish Fry" (Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five), "I Like My Chicken Fryin' Size" & "Fat Gal" (Johnny Bond), "The Bathing Suit Song" (The Bathing Suit Song), "Let My People Go-Go" (The Rainmakers) & "Even Free" (Kristi Martel).

Food for Thought: Eat well and enjoy eating -- we absorb more nutrients from food we like.Stacy Bias's great oral, visual and written history The Fat Experience Project, intended as "a humanizing force in body image activism." Check into fat/anti-shame activist

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here (right click on the link & "save as" to download).

Today's Fat & Happy Music: "Happy Being Fat" (Big Dee Irwin), "Built for Luxury" (Abby Burke featuring the Manly Band ), "Women's Bodies" (Rebecca Riots), "Even Free" (Kristi Martel) & "The Losing Game" (Cosy Sheridan).

Food for Thought: Discussion of new research published in the American Journal of Cardiology indicating that fatter/heavier patients fared better after stent surgery than leaner/lighter patients (which the researchers consider an "obesity paradox" because, don'tcha know, those fat people oughtta be dying more, not less, than thinner people).

And: The movie Disfigured has won the Grand Jury Prize at the deadCENTER Film Festival  in Oklahoma City, will be screened at the Association for Size Diversity & Health conference in Los Angeles July 12, 2008, will premiere at the Two Boots Pioneer Theatre in New York City July 18, 2008 and be released on DVD July 29, 2008. (See the movie's trailer at its website here; plus a shorter trailer on YouTube here and a Real TV Films interview with the movie's stars here.)

About Wall-E: I haven't seen it yet, but have heard that its portrayal of future humans as fat may stereotypically and erroneously reinforce assumptions that body size/composition is directly related to food intake and physical activity. (I.e., fat people are lazy and eat too much.) The true equation is far more complex than "calories in minus calories out," with genes playing a prominent role. If you've seen it and would like to share your impressions, please comment.

Audio:  Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

Video: Disfigured movie trailer; shorter Disfigured trailer; Real TV Films interview with Disfigured's two female stars, Deidra Edwards and Staci Lawrence.

Today's Fat & Happy Music: "Happy Being Fat" (Big Dee Irwin), "Women's Bodies" (Rebecca Riots), "Fat Girl" (Creamy Goodness), "All Alone with a Bathingsuit" (Cosy Sheridan), "The Bathing Suit Song" (The Bathing Suit Song), "Even Free" (Kristi Martel), "Phenomenal Woman" (Ruthie Foster), "More to Love" (Robin Mink), "Three Hundred Pounds of Joy" (Howlin' Wolf), "Fat Boys" (Uncle Bonsai), "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What A Wonderful World" (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole), "Meat On Their Bones" (Kristie Agee), "Fit, Fat & Fine" (Candye Kane) & "Built for Luxury" (Abby Burke featuring the Manly Band).

Food for Thought: Live large & love yourself, whatever your size.

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

Today's Fat & Happy Music

Big Dee Irwin

Spirit Foundry

Fortunate Sons

Food for Thought: Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances , joined me in the studio to talk about her new nonfiction book, 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are)).

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link & "save as" to download.)

Big Dee Irwin

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Aretha Franklin

Kate Campbell

Food for Thought: I expound upon bad ideas & getting in touch with your inner giant Samoan, with a personal story as well as news of Japan's campaign to measure and trim the waistlines of its adult citizenry and "re-educate" those who don't shape up. (On the plus side, Time magazine recently ran an article that practically preached Health At Every Size.)

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

Big Dee Irwin

Candye Kane

Bob Scobey's Frisco Band

Bob Wills

Squirrel Nut Zippers

Ella Mae Morse

Blue Lunch

The Rainmakers

Queen

Mika

Food for Thought: Recent research from Stanford University reported by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance indicates that being physically active can help prevent disability in people over 50 regardless of their weight/weight/BMI. I also discussed a New York Times article reporting world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrists failed to disclose millions of dollars in consulting fees they received from the pharmaceutical companies whose drugs they researched and recommended.

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

Big Dee Irwin

Cosy Sheridan

The Bathing Suit Song

Kristi Martel

Ruthie Foster

Robin Mink

Howlin' Wolf

Uncle Bonsai

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Kristie Agee

Candye Kane

Abby Burke featuring the Manly Band

Food for Thought: Live large & love yourself, whatever your size.

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

[NOTE: This show was originally aired on April 21, 2008.]

Today's Fat & Happy Music: "Happy Being Fat" (Big Dee Irwin), "Demeter's Lost Daughter" & "Iphigenia" (Cosy Sheridan), & "Homegrown Tomatoes" (Guy Clark).

Food for Thought: Interview with  Lisa Sarasohn, author of The Woman's Belly Book: Finding Your True Center for More Energy, Confidence, & Pleasure. Lisa and I talk bellies and she takes me (and listeners who choose to participate through a belly awareness exercise.

Lisa will lead a Gutsy Women! workshop in Ashville, NC June 22, 2008 as part of that weekend's Time For Our Power: Women Bringing Change to the World conference.

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

Today's Fat & Happy Music: "Happy Being Fat" (Big Dee Irwin), "Roly Poly" (Bob Wills), "Start the Commotion" (The Wiseguys), "Big Boned Gal" (kd lang & The Reclines), "Fit, Fat & Fine" (Candye Kane), "I Dance" (Spirit Foundry), "Fat Bottomed Girls" (Queen), "Suit Yourself" (Kate Campbell), "Respect" (Aretha Franklin) & "Women's Bodies" (Rebecca Riots).

Food for Thought: Beware the Washington Post's shockingly biased, inaccurate and fear-mongering new series on "childhood obesity." But do enjoy excerpts on fitness and movement from Cheri K. Erdman, Ed.D.'s book Live Large! Affirmations for Living the Life You Want in the Body You Already Have. (Also recommended: Pat Lyons & Deb Burgard's Great Shape: The First Fitness Guide for Large Women.)

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

Big Dee Irwin

Harry McLintock

Kate Campbell

Jimmy Buffett

Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five

Guy Clark

Steve Goodman

Food for Thought: I've had food- and eating-themed shows before, but today's show was prompted by the Women's National Book Association Nashville chapter's upcoming summer reading/discussion series, whose theme this year is "Food for Thought: Reading and Writing About Food."

Each 1 1/2 hour Monday night book discussion session (starting June 9, with no class on June 30) is free and open to the public. You don't have to be a WNBA member to attend. You don't even have to be a woman to attend.

The June 9 book is Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. June 16 it's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. On June 23 participants will discuss Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel; July 7, My Life in France by Julia Child & Alex Prud'homme; July 14, The Measure of Her Powers: An M.F.K. Fisher Reader edited by Dominique Gioloa; and July 21, The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester.

Each session will be facilitated by a literary expert, from Andrea Lindsey of Blackman High School to Ed & Janey Gleaves (retired from the Tennessee State Library & Archives) and Steve Prewitt of Lipscomb University.The sessions will be held from 7 to 8:30p.m. in Room 136 of the Ezell Center at Lipscomb University on the respective nights.

I haven't read any of the books in the series, so can't recommend them personally....although I've seen the movie version of Like Water for Chocolate and enjoyed its magical realism. But if contemporary orthorexic health pronouncements about food -- or chronic dieting -- have taken the joy out of your eating or cooking, these books might be worth sampling. (A caveat, though: I've skimmed the book description and some reviews of The Omnivore's Dilemma at Amazon.com, and that book appears to present some "obesity epidemic" hype as if it is fact, as well as perpetuate "good food/bad food" dichotomizing. For a balanced perspective, you might also read The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food is Wrong by Barry Glassner, as well as J. Eric Oliver's Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic if you believe "obesity" is raging out of control in the U.S.)

If dieting culture has so alienated you from your appetites that you aren't sure what "normal" or natural eating is, consider this definition of "normal eating" by Ellyn Satter which I heartily recommend. It's from her 1987 book How to Get Your Kid to Eat...But Not Too Much.

Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it -- not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint on your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is three meals a day, or it can be choosing to munch along. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful when they are fresh. Normal eating is overeating at times; feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. It is also undereating at times and wishing you have more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area in your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your emotions, your schedule, your hunger, and your proximity to food.

Bon appetit!

Audio: Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of today's show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)