This is why you're fat


This is why you're fat was a website featuring submitted photos of over-the-top and extremely indulgent food creations. The website of captioned pictures is subtitled "where dreams become heart attacks", and it has been covered by newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Germany. The website appears to be defunct as it has not been updated since June 2015. The URL now gives a security error when loading.
It was co-created by Richard Blakeley, Video Editor for Gawker Media, and Jessica Amason, Viral Media Editor for BuzzFeed. In just over a month since its inception the website had an "astonishing" 10 million page views and its creators are "in talks to create a book version and exploring TV development deals."

Content of website

The items featured on the thisiswhyyourefat.com website have been described as "culinary Frankensteins" and "items with no nutritional value." They have included a 30 kg rice cereal square and other culinary creations with names like "The Homewrecker" and Meat Cake. Highlights of the website also include the "30,000 Calorie Sandwich" made of minced beef, bacon, corn dogs, ham, pastrami, roast beef, bratwurst, Braunschweiger, turkey, fried mushrooms, with onion rings and five varieties of cheese, served on white bread, and the Mega Mel Burger made from 1½ pounds of beef, 1 pound of bacon, a quarter pound of cheese and "fixin's", as well as traditional ethnic dishes like fried chicken skin, khachapuri, poutine, Welsh rarebit, and lechon kawali.
The dishes pictured caused one writer to be nauseated and to wonder, "How bad could a plate of fried chicken skin be? All the flavor of fried chicken, without the pesky chicken. Is that Spam?!'" The fat content and health considerations are a concern; as one humor columnist remarked, "you probably shouldn't eat an Oreo with more than 30 layers of double-stuff cream precariously piled between its two chocolate wafers. Probably."

Expanding offline

In March 2009, it was announced that This Is Why You're Fat signed a book deal with HarperCollins' experimental imprint HarperStudio.