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Monday, August 2, 2004 =B7 Last updated 11:26 a.m. PT
Fat activists see diet industry draining
By DAVID CRARY
AP NATIONAL WRITER
NEW YORK -- Unashamed of their size, fed up with fat jokes, and angry
at=20
the national obsession with dieting, overweight activists are mounting
a=20
feisty protest movement against the medical establishment's campaign=20
against obesity.
"We're living in the middle of a witch hunt and fat people are the=20
witches," said Marilyn Wann of San Francisco, a militant member of the=20
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. "It's gotten markedly=20
worse in the last few years because of the propaganda that fatness, a=20
natural human characteristic, is somehow a form of disease."
The association, known as NAAFA, holds its annual convention starting=20
Wednesday in Newark, N.J., bringing together activists for social
events=20
and workshops on self-acceptance, political advocacy and the "fat=20
liberation" movement.
"I hope we can be a viable force of sanity in the midst of hysteria,"=20
said NAAFA spokeswoman Mary Ray Worley of Madison, Wis. "I've found=20
allies in all kinds of unexpected places, but overall there's a lot of=20
animosity. Some people act like obesity is the next worst thing after=20
terrorism."
The convention comes as the movement is scrambling to counter federal=20
government pronouncements that obesity is a "critical public health=20
problem" costing more than $100 billion and 300,000 lives per year.
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Jean C
"The key to longegvity is to keep breathing"
Sophie Tucker
http://www.uidaho.edu/~bjcraw/
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