"Big Beautiful Woman" (commonly abbreviated as BBW) is a euphemism for an

overweight Being overweight or fat is having more body fat than is optimally healthy. Being overweight is especially common where food supplies are plentiful and lifestyles are sedentary. , excess weight reached epidemic proportions globally, with mo ...

woman.

Meaning and usage

The terms "Big Beautiful Women" and "BBW" were coined by Carole Shaw in 1979, when she launched ''BBW Magazine'', a fashion and

lifestyle magazine Lifestyle journalism is the field of journalism that provides news and opinion, often in an entertaining tone, regarding goods and services used by consumers in their everyday life. Lifestyle journalism covers travel, fashion, fitness, leisure, fo ...

for " plus-size" women. BBW Magazine trademarked the term Big Beautiful Woman, which was later transferred to Dimensions Magazine. Although "BBW" may have been first used in the context of BBW Magazine, the term's usage spread over the years. It has reached the point that even women who have never heard of the magazine have begun to refer to themselves as "BBWs". The abbreviation BBW can often be found used in

personal ad A personal advertisement, sometimes called a contact ad, is a form of classified advertising in which a person seeks to find another person for friendship, romance, marriage, or sexual activity. In British English, it is commonly known as an adve ...

online dating service Online dating, also known as Internet dating, Virtual dating, or Mobile app dating, is a relatively recent method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An onlin ...

s, and

pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

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 The fat acceptance movement, also known as fat pride, fat empowerment, and fat activism, is a social movement which seeks to eliminate the social stigma of fatness from social attitudes by pointing out the social obstacles which are faced by ...

. The term has several near-synonyms with varying shades of meaning, such as "full-figured", "

voluptuous {{Short pages monitor