Fat admiration

"Big Beautiful Woman" (commonly abbreviated as BBW) is a euphemism for an overweight woman. The terms "Big Beautiful Women" and "BBW" were coined by Carole Shaw in 1979, when she launched BBW Magazine, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for "plus-size" women.

The term is a subjective, visually determined concept that does not have an explicit lower or upper weight limitation, and may denote women who may be considered barely overweight to those who are morbidly obese. A 2009 study found that male fat admirers preferred females that were clinically overweight and rated both overweight and obese women more positively than slighter individuals. The study also found that participants reacted more positively to a much wider range of figures than a control group, even rating emaciated figures higher. It concludes "these findings suggest that an explanation for fat admiration may be that FAs are rejecting sociocultural norms of attractiveness".

The term has several near-synonyms with varying shades of meaning:

Although "BBW" may have been first used in the context of BBW Magazine, the term's usage spread over the years, to the point that even women who had never heard of the magazine began to refer to themselves as "BBWs".

Some women may adopt the term as a personal preference over the term Rubenesque, or full-figured, because they may not necessarily have large breasts or hips. Such terms, and others such as "queen-sized", "plus-sized", or "fat" may lead to feelings of marginalization or non-inclusion for some women. However, some strongly prefer the term fat over other words which they consider unnecessary euphemisms.

The abbreviation BBW can often be found used in personal ads (and online dating services) denoting an identification with (or preference for) such women, and is also used to denote events specifically targeted to such women, and persons interested in them, such as specific gathering nights in dance clubs, restaurants, and fashion stores and shows.

The term is also commonly used as a positive euphemism by those involved with the fat acceptance movement.

Some BBWs also identify as feedees—deriving satisfaction from the act or fantasy of growing larger, often with the help of a partner known as a feeder. This subculture is known as feederism and overlaps considerably with the fat admiration community online. A common misconception is that those who identify as feedees must be significantly larger than their non-feedee BBW counterparts, however one study found the average weight of self-identified female feedees was actually 20 kilograms lower than self-identified BBWs.

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Wikipedia