Plus-Sized Nightclubs: Rattle and Rolls?

The name says it all - Club Bounce. And Long Beach, California folks looking to shake and rattle their rolls think that a dance club for the obese is just what doctor ordered -- for their social lives at least.

Long unable to get past the velvet ropes at traditional nightclubs because of their weight, Californians with a few (or even more than a few) extra pounds have no trouble getting in at Club Bounce. That's because the club was created to serve a specific clientele: the overweight and obese.

Club-goer Vanessa Gray is a fan of the concept. She says in an interview:

"When you're not what they consider ideal, you know, and you're out there trying to get your dance on at those other places, you get the looks, the stares. But not here. Everything's accepted here."

That acceptance isn't easy to come by. A 2008 study out of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that overweight and obese people feel more discriminated against than they did 10 years ago, despite the fact that obesity rates themselves are climbing.

Obesity causes problems for people in the workplace (and can also affect their pay), and in the U.K., people are apparently getting beat up ... just for being fat.

Club Bounce wants to give its patrons the gift of forgetting all that fattism, if only for a night. Says fat activist Lynn McAfe:

"It's nice to have a place to go where you can do a little flirting and maybe bring your thin sister or somebody from work who isn't fat, and they'll be in your world for awhile. That's an amazing experience for a lot of people who aren't fat, to spend a day or night in a world of fat people."

It's hard to believe that it's an "amazing experience" for thin people to interact with a group of overweight adults. On a daily basis, the people I meet and deal with come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, there is no "us" and "them." Then again, I live in the American Midwest where we'll be wearing parkas from now until April and there are few velvet ropes to restrict access. Maybe in an environment where looks are so important, it really does feel like living in a different world.

Club Bounce seems like a weird concept -- do we really need a whole separate club for the obese? But I like it for one reason: Part of the process of learning how to take care of yourself is feeling good about yourself. And if it takes a place like Club Bounce to get you into your dancing shoes to have some fun with your friends, then do it. That boost in self-confidence might be just what it takes to start making the small necessary changes that lead to fitness: Taking the stairs, skipping the free doughnuts at the office, or taking a walk after work.

Do you think a nightclub for the obese is a good idea?

By Bethany Sanders

Source: Dietblog