© 2024 Blue Ridge Public Radio
Blue Ridge Mountains banner background
Your source for information and inspiration in Western North Carolina.
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Big, Fat And Fabulous With Whitney Way Thore

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published August 8, 2016 at 11:51 AM EDT

This is a rebroadcast of a program that originally aired on June 27, 2016.

Whitney Way Thore knows how much she has weighed at every point in her life.

Whitney Way Thore's "Fat Girl Dancing" video went viral. Soon after, TLC launched "My Big Fat Fabulous Life," featuring Thore and her positive body image mentality.
Credit Joseph Bradley
Whitney Way Thore's "Fat Girl Dancing" video went viral. Soon after, TLC launched "My Big Fat Fabulous Life," featuring Thore and her positive body image mentality.

And for decades, deconstructing the size and shape of her body consumed much of her mental and emotional energy. She struggled with an eating disorder, compulsive exercise, and eventually was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome.  

A few years ago, her friends convinced her to post a video of her dancing on the internet and "Fat Girl Dancing" went viral. The video set her off on a mission to revolutionize her own relationship with her body and reduce body shame and increase body positivity for others.Meet reality show star Whitney Way Thore.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Greensboro native Whitney Way Thore about her journey to becoming the star of her own reality show "My Big Fat Fabulous Life," currently in its third season on TLC. Thore also discusses her new memoir "I Do It With The Lights On" (Ballantine Books/2016).

Here's Whitney's 'Fat Girl Dancing' Video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj-VmZYcUhQ

Check out her book trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKZjkuON2nI

Thore, age 4, before her first dance class.
Whitney Way Thore /
Thore, age 4, before her first dance class.
Thore at age 18, poses for a prom photo.
Whitney Way Thore /
Thore at age 18, poses for a prom photo.

Copyright 2016 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio