In 1993, Marilyn Wann had what she calls a "REALLY BAD" day, one she insists warrants capitalization. She sits across from her dinner date, a guy she is really starting to like--and from the way things have been going, she can tell he likes her too. Out of nowhere he summons the nerve to make a brutally honest confession. The man she has been inclined to think of as a prospective boyfriend is now telling her he is embarrassed of her size, so much that he can't bring himself to introduce her to his friends. After collecting the shattered remnants of her self-esteem off of the table, Wann comes home to a letter from Blue Cross of California denying her health insurance, for being what they consider "morbidly obese." This is her breaking point.

"I simply disagree with being excluded--so the next day I started a zine," she says. "FAT!SO?, for people who don't apologize for their size," has an accompanying hot pink website that greets you immediately with a menagerie of flabulously naked booties--dimpled and proud. The San Francisco-based activist for size acceptance later wrote a hugely popular book about her life that shares this same title, and it's her way of reclaiming the ridicule she experienced in childhood. "The minute I decided to come out as a fat person my life got a lot better," says Wann. "My dating life got better. I know my friends are really my friends; they aren't just putting up with me."

As a not-so-skinny child, growing up behind the orange curtain of Southern California, Wann remembers a place known more for leggy blondes and plastic surgery than a gentle, accepting community that celebrated a diverse variety of body shapes. She would never think of going to dance class with her friends, and she refused to wear shirts without sleeves. Now Wann has shed the shroud of insecurity from her younger years, and proclaims herself a "rad fatty." That's right. F.A.T. Not big-boned or zaftig. Not rubenesque, plump, overweight, or chunky. She says she prefers the F-word because the others aren't as much fun to say, and euphemisms aren't going to change her. "I don't like the word overweight; there is an idea that there is a right weight and everyone above that is wrong," says Wann.

"The consequences of experiencing discrimination are worse for you than being fat. It's very real. It's very harmful for a person's health," says Juliana Van Olphen, PhD, an assistant professor of health education at SF State. "The social and cultural ideal has become even more unrealistic over the last twenty years. It really saddens me that we are where we are in putting so much pressure on young girls."

Ten years ago, Marilyn Wann and her friends Carole Cullum and Frances White organized a successful hearing for San Francisco's Human Rights Commission with the intent of amending city legislation that resulted in the adoption of "Compliance Guidelines to Prohibit Weight and Height Discrimination."

Their efforts have resulted in a law that monitors programs, services, and facilities in the city so that they are accessible to everyone, and protects reasonable accommodations, employment, housing, and harassment.

In her younger years, Wann was so embarrassed of her weight that she banned the topic from conversation, putting everything weight related "in the black hole," never uttering the word "diet." In college, there were a few times when her negative body image forced her to starve herself and there were short stints of strenuous exercise, but it was never a lifestyle. "It was incredibly unpleasant," she says. "It changed my mood. My whole day was grumpy and hungry."

Now that March has come and gone, it's safe to say that most people have given up on their New Year's resolutions and gung-ho weight loss regimens, because whatever pills they were popping and machines they'd purchased weren't showing them the instant results advertised. Marketdata Enterprises, Inc, a leading market research publisher of service industry studies, has released a new report: "The U.S. Weight Loss & Diet Control Market," projecting the total U.S. weight loss market's rise from $58.7 billion in 2007 to $68.7 billion by 2010.

"I went on an imaginary shopping trip to see what I could buy [with $58.7 billion]. We could build a country home and a city home for all the homeless people. We could feed all of the hungry people. We could take everyone on earth to see a movie," says Wann. "Our society pays the price for believing in those things."

A new school of thought has emerged and is gaining momentum in the Bay Area. Health at Every Size (HAES), a social justice-based approach, contends that contrary to popular Western medical opinion, it is entirely possible to be both fit and fat. As a culture, we are told that exercise, dietary restrictions, and behavior modification will result in abs of steel in thirty days or less, resulting in mass disappointment, diet after diet.

Remember Fen-phen, the revolutionary weight loss medication? It caused valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension in some of the women who used it as far back as the 1990s, but was not officially removed from shelves until 2004, when the FDA finally deemed it unsafe for consumption.

HAES addresses the serious physical and psychological health risks of extreme dieting and exercise fads by taking the emphasis away from appearance. HAES promotes intuitive eating that satisfies nutritional needs while recognizing hunger and pleasure. It incorporates reasonable, enjoyable physical activity, rather than exercise with the goal of shedding pounds.

The Bay Area fat-positive community is making a strong presence, and they are more active than you might think. Wann keeps herself busy with gardening, swimming, volleyball, and yoga, and has overcome her aversion to the dance floor.

Big Moves is a non-profit, "size-positive dance troupe" that started in 2000, with strongholds in San Francisco and Boston. The Phat Fly Girls, Big Move's eight-person, hip hop performance group, is spreading the message that the dance floor should not discriminate.

"It doesn't matter if you have certain limitations. Every body can dance," says co-artistic director Matilda St. John. To spice up their usual hip hop performances, the troupe has also incorporated remakes of Broadway plays. Their 2007 show included parodies of Chicago songs like "All That Flab" and "The One Ton Tango."

The Phat Fly Girls have weekly rehearsal, but Big Moves encourages everyone to drop in for classes on the first and third Saturday of the every month at The Beat in Berkeley. "It's a really great place for people who haven't danced before or people who haven't danced in a long time," says St. John.

Wann is also a supporter of Sally Pugh who teaches Yoga for Large Women in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Albany. She practices Ananda style yoga in her classes, a more forgiving style that allows individual students to customize their positions to accommodate their abilities.

It's a Wednesday afternoon in Women's Health class at SF State. The entirely female audience sits amidst the glow of fluorescent lighting and an over-abundance of estrogen. Almost every seat is full and Wann stands before them, wearing a bright pink polo shirt and a jean jacket with a matching pink fur collar--"FATSO" silk-screened across her back. She begins to tell them about the discrimination she has faced, both socially and medically, because of her weight.

She writes "Fat" and "Thin" on the board and draws a dividing line. She asks the class to shout out negative stereotypes they have learned about fat people and she writes each one on the fat side of the chalkboard. "Smelly?" asks a meek voice from somewhere in the back of the room. Wann wiggles her booty and her eyes close behind her black-framed cat-eye shaped glasses. "Dirty," says another. Wann jumps up and down in her pink socks and flip-flops. "Lazy," someone calls out. "Gluttonous!" After a while, the nervous laughs turn into true belly laughter as Wann hula dances to praise the audience for their honest responses.

"Instead of reacting to a system of rude stereotypes--to hop over to the thin side, we could just try to undermine that system," Wann says. "If you feel like it, mess the shit up. Instead of agreeing with it, disagree. You're actually quite a rebel and a hero if you disagree."

Wann moves toward the long table at the front of the room and hoists herself onto it. Sitting next to her is a hot pink, glittering bathroom scale. She holds it up and reveals that this is no ordinary scale; this is a Yay Scale. It is emblazoned with a rather large "YAY!" sticker, and the scale has confidence boosters on every notch, minus the usual hurtful numbers. Wann plops the scale on the tile and encourages everyone to "yay themselves" before she leaves.

Two brave women head to the front of the room as the rest of the class shuffles around. The first one, a brunette with long spiral curls steps onto the scale. "I'm hot!" she says as she throws her arms up. Her classmate steps on it next. "I'm beautiful!" she grins, jumping backward off the scale.

"Fight the man," Wann says, as she looks into the women's eyes. "If you can't be at home in your own body, where are you going to go? Don't fight the man for me, do it for your own selfish reasons."