Magazine Tries to Live Off the Fat of the Land
Alice Ansfield, magazine magnate, is on a one-woman mission to publish all the news that’s fat to print. All the good news about being fat, that is.
Ansfield, 35, is the force behind Radiance, a quarterly for large women published since the fall of 1984 from her apartment’s living room. Neither fashion magazine nor feminist tract, Radiance seeks readers among the estimated 30 million American women who wear size 16 and larger.
The intent is to boost self-esteem, an aim that flies in the face of a think-thin society’s most deeply rooted convictions about body size and self-image. Ansfield, a native of Milwaukee, said she had the moralistic message about body fat drummed into her as a chubby child in a family of overweight people.
“You can’t be happy if you’re fat, you can’t love yourself if you’re fat--and I bought it,” she said.
Now a size 20 who cannot tell you how much she weighs because she defiantly buried her scale in a closet months ago, Ansfield wants large women to stop thinking of themselves as lesser human beings.
“The thing is, you can’t beat it,” she said. “Some of our readers are still trying to--they’re dieting, and we don’t tell them not to. We’re not taking a stand either way. We’re simply saying to live now--stop putting your life on hold until you lose weight.”
To help them, Radiance publishes helpful features and columns. Personal testimonials, success stories, humor, fashion, health, think pieces on cross-cultural views of body size, even food--all are fit grist for the magazine’s editorial mill. So, too, are occasional listings of community events of interest to large women--self-image workshops, group swims, yoga and exercise classes, fashion shows, entertainment, social gatherings, etc.
Two attractive--and very large--designers who specialize in oversize clothing graced the spring cover this year, and the preponderance of advertising is fashion or beauty-related. But Ansfield takes pains to distinguish her publication from its major competitor, Big Beautiful Woman, based in Encino.
“Radiance is not fashion. Really, what Radiance is about is self-expression, self-acceptance and self-love. Clothes are one part of it, but we reach the core of the person,” she said.
As editor and publisher with nine issues behind her, Ansfield admitted that she suffered initial anxiety about running out of material. “I was worried,” she said. “How many times can we say to people, ‘Love yourself and live your life?’ But I’m not worried anymore.”
The current issue showcases three masseuses and their careers as “body workers.” Planned editions will feature material on maternity, adoption and fertility. The spring issue’s cover story is on artists--painters and sculptors--who celebrate the large female figure.
Ansfield, while acknowledging there isn’t much for men in Radiance’s current incarnation, said that she had to start somewhere.
“I think women need it right now more than men,” she said. “Typically, women are judged on how they look and men are judged on what they do. . . . And a fat man in business is much more accepted than a fat woman.”
Nonetheless, the concerns of large men will be addressed soon. The spring issue inaugurates a series of interviews. “We went after Dom DeLuise, Luciano (Pavarotti) and John Candy,” Ansfield said.
What they came up with, besides a polite decline from Dom DeLuise, was a focus on KRON-TV commentator Wayne Shannon.
In spite of editorial success, Radiance is still struggling. The publication, an offshoot of a newsletter Ansfield did for a dance class for large women, was launched on funds donated by her parents.
The publisher herself, who quit a part-time job doing community relations for a bank so she could throw full-time efforts into Radiance, admits that she is growing weary of putting it all together, with very little help. The magazine staff consists of a circulation person who works on Fridays, a copy editor who works issue by issue, an ad-hoc art director and a part-time word processor.
On the other hand, it has grown from a 20-page, black-and-white publication on cheap newsprint to a full-color, almost glossy magazine 32 pages strong that sells for $2.50 a copy.
“It’s getting better, but no, we’re not breaking even yet,” she said. “But good things keep happening--it’s like Radiance’s time and my time.”
