I beg your pardon?

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing has published a link to a Salon article about Torrid.

I was surprised to hear the store is meant for XL teenagers. I've been shopping there for years, I guess since they opened. I have a particular soft spot for the store in Annapolis because they used to go out of their way to move racks and things around to make Danny feel more comfortable scooting around in his wheelchair. Not that he really needed it because he was all about feeling confident but still, it touched me and after he died I made a point of going back to the store to thank them for all the times they were thoughtful.

So anyway, look at this:

Now, no one wants heavy teens to feel bad. But a handful of weight-management experts wonder if there's such a thing as feeling too good. "If the teens are overweight and are physically healthy then I think the 'cool' plus-sized clothing can help overweight teens become comfortable with their bodies," says T. Joel Wade, a professor and the chair of psychology at Bucknell University, who focuses on body image and self-esteem. "However, if the teens are overweight due to diet excesses and a lack of exercise and physical activity, then I think the clothing can simply reinforce that they do not need to exercise or care about their physical health."

Let me be clear that the author addresses this but still Oh My God how offensive is this?

Cory sums it up this way:

The article does a good job of turning them up, including a coda about whether a plus-size fashion boutique encourages obesity

Can I just scream? Has anyone ever dreamed of saying that Big and Tall stores for men encourages obesity? Of course not. What about the fact that Torrid is really Hot Topic? You want cool Torrid clothes and you're not a woman of size then take yourself down to Hot Topic and get what you want. It's laughable to think anyone would want to be fat and get all the crap fat people get just to wear some clothes.

I think that the attitude is really that fat girls should be punished. Obviously anyone who is fat is engaging in the deadly, yes deadly because we all know fat kills, right?, sin of gluttony. How dare these girls be fat and still want to be cute? It's outrageous! That's what I think is going through the minds of these dolts. They want to shame fatties into losing weight.

Guess what pal, it's not so simple. There are plenty of us who eat right, exercise and still continue to weigh a heck of a lot more than you think we should.

Dr. Marie told me once that back in the day my tribe was captured and taken on a death march. Other members of my tribe died of malnutrition, dropped dead of hunger while we kept on our forced march. But my wonderful genes were able to carry my ancestor through and she likely nursed a baby or two at the same time. I have an incredible ability to get every bit of use from a calorie and then store the rest for that future death march that my body knows, knows in its deepest, darkest DNA, is waiting for me.

God bless my genes. I am one lucky camper and if I want to dress my genes up in a pair of bright green flood pants then more power to me.