Fatties Need Love Too (An Uncool Read)

I'm sorry, but I have a bit of trouble with women who think a size 12 is fat and that a man can't love them when they've gained a few pounds. And bam! There in the back of the November 2011 issue of one of my favorite magazines, Marie Claire, is an article titled "Til Pounds Do Us Part." Written by Theresa O'Rourke, the piece is about how the author gained some weight and the weight was coming between her and her husband.

O'Rourke begins the piece with five paragraphs about her and her weight gain. Altogether the piece is 17 paragraphs long. She only really gets to talking about her "rock-star lean" husband in the seventh paragraph, which suggests to me that her piece is less about her husband than the weight gain. And possibly the piece is really about how her husband's view of her was influenced by her own feelings that she wasn't sexy.

Her husband comments in the twelfth paragraph that if she looked like she had when they married, they'd "have 10 kids by now" and this triggers "the most honest talk we've ever had," O'Rourke writes.

Her conclusion is that her husband's laziness influenced her and thus she gained weight. "For every way we enriched each other's bad habits, we had caught each other's bad habits, too, like a cold," O'Rourke writes. "And we knew that without care, we would just keep passing them around."

Still, after this, she concludes that the "care" had to begin with her and so she joins a gym. That's how she wraps it up. Really?! This piece at 740 words tries, but fails to make any single, strong point.

If the wedded couple were at fault for each other's flaws, then why weren't the two of them going to the gym together? (And as an aside, if the husband is so rock-star lean, then how was it his laziness that made her lazy?)

Also, she mentions stress causing her to drink a little more than usual at the beginning of the article. Might not her inability to handle stress productively be part of the problem?

Furthermore, if the author's own unease with her body -- and her mentioned unsightly wardrobe -- are really to blame for her husband's own lackluster feelings for her new shape, then what about dealing with her own issues? There are skinny women who have expressed disease with their lack of curves. If O'Rourke really gained the weight in the "right" places, i.e. her breasts and butt, then what's so bad with her new shape? Google image-search the words "5'3 and 165 pounds," which is how much she weighed after gaining pounds, you'll see some normal-looking women.

What's wrong with normal or even slightly overweight women? Especially if you own it?

So, I beg of you, what was the point of "Til Pounds Do Us Part"? Journalistically, it definitely could use some work. For any modern-day feminist, it's a bit of an outrage.