What's the business of Largely Positive?
Largely Positive is an organization that promotes health among larger people, and educates the larger population about the value of self-esteem. We produce a newsletter called: On a Positive Note, which goes out primarily to consumers but increasingly to professionals and researchers, and we have a Web site -- www.largelypositive.com, which features information about how larger people can achieve better self-esteem. I also do a lot of public speaking about my book, Self Esteem Comes in All Sizes.
What made you decide to start Largely Positive?
I have been a larger person my entire life. When I was born I weighed like ten pounds, and I was a chubby toddler and a chubby child and I've just always been a big person. And I've tried all my life to lose weight. I've been on every diet imaginable and every form of exercise, you name it, and I would always lose weight, but then I'd gain it back.
In 1987, I was in the bookstore looking for another diet book, and I came across a book called The Dieter's Dilemma. It was about why people become large and why people are born large. It went through, very methodically, all of the research that had been done up to that point about the biological and physiological underpinnings of obesity.
I was shocked by this book. I had always assumed that my weight was entirely my fault. That's what everybody had always told me, and if I'd just stop eating so much, I could lose weight. This book was an eye-opener for me, and it almost made me angry, because I thought, "There is so much that people don't know. There is so much that's going on in our bodies that isn't related to food that conspires to make us bigger."
