Fat’s beauty in eye of beholder

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.

As long as Rob Stevens stands six feet away from the Flamingo, between the showgirl in a pink leotard pushing some act and the man handing out cards for direct-to-your-door companionship, the Chicago weight loss coach can peddle his message to the masses, printed on a 3x5 card: "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE FAT PEOPLE."

This is how Stevens spent Tuesday afternoon in Las Vegas, a trip he took to rile his target audience milling inside the casino - 1,000 people gathering for the 11th annual BBW Network Bash. That's Big Beautiful Women, here for dance lessons, formal balls, fashion shows and private pool parties. Their bash is a celebration of size.

Stevens is a terrorist among them. Last month he founded an anti-obesity organization , the National Association for Body Responsibility, and now he's waging a sidewalk war against the overweight, with stickers, leaflets and T-shirts. All feature the round red-and-white no-smoking symbol, but with a swollen silhouette of a man in the middle, gape-mouthed and hatched out.

"It's tough love," Stevens says. "But if they actually listened and let my words penetrate their skin - I was gonna say 'fat skin' - they could actually change their life with this information."

Offended? In a way, that's just what he wants. Buttons to push. Attention, even if it must come with contempt.

A woman carrying a collection of stuffed animals shuffles past Stevens, looks at his flier and says, "That's sick."

Flamingo security guards threaten to call the cops. They never come.

"I don't dislike fat people," Stevens says. "I dislike fat."

In Nevada, 70 percent of men and 49 percent of women are overweight or obese, according to 2004 statistics from the state Health Division, the latest available.

Stevens is 44 years old, 5 feet 9 and 160 pounds. He hasn't always been. Seven years ago, he lost almost half his body weight, quit his job as a sales manager and became a weight-loss coach. In 2003 he launched an online weight-loss program: Thintuition. Members pay a $30 monthly fee.

Slimming down would be easier, he says, if there were "cultural structures" to pressure people - such as smoking bans in restaurants, buffet bans for the obese. Higher insurance for the overweight. Taxes on fat.

In lieu of such laws, Stevens embraces a cultural structure that already exists: scorn.

Several tourists, stopped by the stickers, feel compelled to paste them onto their stomachs. Allyson Mo, 23, visiting from Ohio, presses one against her chest and laughs.

"There are too many fat people in the world," she says. "We need to control the fatness."

Two of Stevens ' clients join him in Vegas. This demonstration isn't their first. In June, Stevens ' anti-obesity organization rallied against the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance annual convention in Chicago. When contacted, the association refused to comment.

Nor would BBW Bash founder JoAnne Bellemore. Although when Stevens e-mailed her, announcing his intent to protest, Bellemore wrote back, called him a hate-monger and made her feelings clear:

"Since I believe this 'organization' is just a front to sell your program, and just another way to make a buck off fat people, you have zero credibility with me," she wrote.

Stevens ' critics all make this point. And it's not entirely wrong. He would love to enroll people in his program. Would love to sell his book, "The Overfed Head." He needs to pay the bills, Stevens says, just like a gastric bypass surgeon.

"My book could save their lives," he says.

But they don't want it. Any of it.

Colleen Gerke, who came from California to attend the Bash, said she had better things to do.

"I'm going to put on my bikini and get in the pool," she said, stopping to snap her fingers and spin in a circle.