Disclosure: I received an advanced copy of this book to review for free. I also have the same literary agent as the author, whose name I will guard with the ferocity of a mother lioness. ROAR! So don’t ask. I ain’t telling.

I related a lot to author Kim Brittingham as I read her new book, Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting, and Live Large. We both moved a lot as kids. We both had frizzy unmanageable hair that I have only recently learned how to tame. We both thought we might be having a heart attack at 23. We both have old “fat” photos from our teen years in which we don’t appear fat at all. And after weight loss and weight gain we’re both at places where we’re basically cool with our bodies. (Well, cool with the weight thing, anyway. I have numerous complaints about the chronic headache, crooked teeth, bad vision, flat fleet, five wisdom teeth, etc., etc.)

You might have heard of Kim after she got [...]

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British recording artist Mika recently released a video for his single “Big Girl (You are Beautiful)” which you can check out below:

I love the shocked expressions on the faces of the people at the farmer’s market they apparently crashed. Some people just look confused and others seem mildly amused. Some people have disapproving looks. I don’t know if that’s because they just came there to get a deal on tomatoes and found their way to the veggie cart blocked by six girls grooving in shiny clothes or if they’re shocked that anyone that size would dare dance in a leotard in public.

By the end Mika’s turned into a pied piper and is leading crowds of people through the street dancing. At the 2:30 mark you can see that they made the cameraman dress up in a big monkey suit. It looks like it was a lot of fun to shoot, especially with all the balloons and multi-colored umbrellas.

Too bad there was nothing like this on TV or the radio when I was growing up. The [...]

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