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More plus-size women take on TV; fans mixed
Associated Press Writer
There is just more and more of a hunger among women to see images of women that look and feel real.
- Cindi Leive, Glamour executive editor
"Average women," she says.
The host of the new Fox reality dating show, "More to Love," has been on this campaign since the mid-1990s, when she began telling full-size women to be more accepting of themselves. In her latest venture, she guides a 6-foot-3, 330-pound man as he chooses among 20 women who wear sizes ranging from 14 to 22.
Television is suddenly filled with images of full-figured people - real and fictional - although not as everyday people just living their lives. The shows focus on their size - on "More to Love," the contestants' height and weight, and that of the bachelor, were flashed on the screen as they were introduced in the first episode.
Oxygen's "Dance Your Ass Off" features 12 contestants, weighing a total of 3,000 pounds, who lose weight through dancing, and Lifetime's "Drop Dead Diva" is about a model-wannabe who dies and comes back as a plus-size attorney.
The Style Network's reality show "Ruby" is in its second season, telling the story of Ruby Gettinger of Savannah, Ga., who's down to 350 pounds from her highest weight of 716.
"I think these welcomed shows are opening the aperture," on full-size women, said Emme, whose size ranges from a 12/14 to a 14/16. "These are fun shows to watch, and they are really taking the perspective of the full-sized woman and bringing it into the type of package people can relate to."
Some fashion magazines are ahead of the curve - so to speak - on featuring plus-size models. Glamour became serious about it in the last five years, featuring Queen Latifah on the cover in May 2004, said Cindi Leive, the magazine's executive editor.
"There is just more and more of a hunger among women to see images of women that look and feel real."
But the reaction to the 3-inch-by-3-inch photograph on page 194 of the September issue surprised even Leive. "I am gasping with delight," one reader wrote. "I love the woman on p. 194," someone else wrote.
Model Lizzi Miller, a 20-year-old who wears a size 12/14, is shown in sideways pose, her arms covering her breasts, only the string of a string bikini visible at the waist. The shocker: Her belly hangs over the string and rests just a bit on her thighs.
"There's a roll in her belly that looks like every woman over the age of 16," Leive said. "And there she is, looking happy and confident and like she loves life and like she's the sexiest thing in the world."
If people do relate to the shows - and Fox hasn't decided whether to renew "More to Love" - it may be because they reflect the image that Americans see in the mirror. The average U.S. woman wears a size 14, and an estimated 56 percent of American women wear plus sizes, which start at size 14 or 16, depending on the brand.
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