for people who don't apologize for their size
BMI
(the Body Mass Index of fat culture)
Number of weight control services in the Oakland yellow pages: 55
Number of battered women's shelters in the Oakland yellow pages: 1
Percentage of clothing stores in Oakland that carry size 14 or larger: 10
Percentage of American women who wear a size 14 or larger: 40
Marilyn Monroe's dress size in 1960: 16
Twiggy's weight in pounds when she appeared on the cover of Vogue in 1967: 91
Number of times Twiggy graced the cover of Vogue that year: 4
Average hip measurement, in inches, of female department store mannequins between 1920 and 1950: 34
In 1993: 31
Average hip measurement, in inches, of a young adult woman in 1993: 37
Number of people who enrolled in commercial weight loss programs in 1991: 7.9 million
Amount of revenue, in dollars, those programs generated that year: 2 billion
Percentage of weight loss program enrollees who are women: 95
Percentage increase in likelihood that a woman will live in poverty if she is fat: 10
Sales price, in dollars, of the 17-year-old Weight Watchers Empire in 1978: 100 million
Number of dollars American businessmen sacrifice in salary for every pound they are overweight: 1,000
Average difference, in dollars, between a fat woman's household income and that of a thin woman: - 6,710
Percentage of dieters who will regain the weight they lose within three years: 95-98
Percentage of Americans who believe in miracles: 70
- compiled by Sondra Solovay
Sources: Pacific Bell Smart Yellow Pages; Glamour; MENSA Magazine; Working Woman, October, 1992; UC Berkeley School of Public Health Wellness Letter, December, 1993; Marketdata Enterprises; Never Too Thin, by Eva Szekely; the New England Journal of Medicine, September 30, 1993; Working Woman, October, 1992; New York Times article, ŇObesity: A Heavy Burden to BearÓ by Gina Kolata; the New England Journal of Medicine, September 30, 1993; the 1994 World Almanac.
Sondra Solovay is a performance artist currently operating undercover as a law student.