Community Corner
West Bloomfield Native Fights Fat Discrimination, Hatred
Amanda Leavitt, who speaks out at fatbodypolitics.com, will appear Monday, 8:30 a.m., on CNN.com.
A Wayne State University graduate who grew up in West Bloomfield has taken to social media to fight America's obsession with weight loss and getting thin.
In a Sunday Detroit Free Press profile, Amanda Levitt, 28, who now lives in Ferndale, talks about the vicious hate mail she receives as the result of her blog, fatbodypolitics.com, where she "defends beauty in any shape and size."
Leavitt said that her photo appeared in ads when she was a child, and she was involved in beauty pageants.
“I actually wasn’t that heavy, but it was West Bloomfield. ... Body size is very contextual to wear (sic) you live. Being in a community that’s mostly white and that is affluent, the constraints on my body are distinctly different," Leavitt told the newspaper.
Given that "genetics and lifestyle are different", she said, “Why can’t we be allowed to be happy with ourselves?”.
On her Tumblr.com account, Leavitt announced that she will appear on CNN news Monday at 8:30 a.m.
Read the Free Press profile.
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