Most people remember their grade-school years with a fond wistfulness.
That kickball game when you set sail that big round of red rubber over the playground fence and into traffic and then watched as it got bounced around by the passing cars.
That perfect report card.
For Linda Izzo Heinrich it was that gym teacher.
Even in our revisionist consciousness, some things don”™t change. Some events still weigh heavy on the heart.
Forty-four years later, Heinrich becomes that little girl as she remembers that fateful day in gym; the panic and anxiety returns too readily to her face. She pauses as she retells the story, heaving a sigh, blinking back a tear.
It was the class weigh-in where everyone stepped on the scale with the metal strip that plopped down on your head.
At 117, she weighed more than anyone else in her class. At 5 foot 4, she wasn”™t huge by any means; she just happened to be the biggest among her classmates.
As the other kids laughed after her weigh-in, so did the gym teacher, Mr., well no need to mention him. She still remembers his name. She”™ll never forget that day. She cried all through recess and sobbed the remainder of the day. Boys, being evil at that age, tormented her.
The panic recedes from her face.
She was hysterical as she told her mom what happened. Her mom, looking to make her daughter happy, took her immediately to a diet doctor. “It would”™ve been better if she said ”˜You”™re beautiful.” But parents try to do their best. “I don”™t blame my mother.”
From the 6th grade on she was on diets and pills. She lost weight just to gain it back.
Life went on for the Rockland County native. She graduated magna cum laude from SUNY New Paltz with a bachelor”™s degree in education and sociology. After college there were no teaching jobs, so she and a friend went into sales; Shaklee and Amway distributorships. She used to hang out at O”™Donoghue”™s Tavern in Nyack, OD”™s to the regulars. It was there that she met the man who was to be her husband, David Heinrich. They”™ve been together for 30 years.
She helped manage his general contracting company. She and David would buy houses, fix them and sell them at a profit. “We built up a nice portfolio.”
It was while watching “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, that fat women came on modeling clothes. “What the hell is this?”
Carole Shaw, founder of Big Beautiful Woman magazine told the audience: “Aren”™t they beautiful?”
“I never heard big and beautiful in the same sentence,” Heinrich said.
“It changed my attitude, thinking and acceptance by me. My acceptance of me helped David. My husband always loved me.”
“It doesn”™t matter if you”™re fat or thin,” she says. “Whatever you are in life, be the best that you can be.”
With that in mind, in 1987 she started a Web site, thebigmama.com, extolling the virtues of being fat. “I like to use ”˜fat”™ rather than ”˜overweight.”™ Over whose weight? Fat is an adjective like bald.”
“People don”™t realize that fatness is physiological, as well as physical and cultural.”
And by cultural, she doesn”™t mean being Italian; she means the pharmaceutical companies that make money to make people thin.
She went on the popular Optifast diet and gained her weight back. On a national broadcast by a well-known TV news magazine in March 1988, she was portrayed as the lonely, fat lady; even though she was anything but.
She has done numerous seminars, as well as radio and TV shows.
She stopped using sugar and butter. It was something she knew she could do for life.
“We have to be as healthy as we can be NOW ”“ not tomorrow ”“ not next week.”
In 2004, she created The Big Mama Wellness Project Inc., a nonprofit that promotes health and understanding of fat people through self-improvement programs, “More to Love” fitness videos ”“ she calls them size-friendly workouts ”“ and her music CD, “Here”™s to Life ”¦ Now.” She wrote two of the songs on the CD, which, like the video, she has given away free worldwide.
She remembers her first public singing gig at the age of 3; her dad picked her up and put her down on the counter of a soda fountain and she belted out “My country tis of thee…”
Today, her age (55) and weight (around 350) don”™t bother her. “Fat is my specialty, I is one.”
When she hit 500 pounds in 2003 she decided to get a gastric bypass because it affected her ability to move. In March 2006, some cells from a medical procedure came back indicating the possibility of endometrial cancer. She ended up having an operation that resulted in a 36-inch scar. “They cut me from here to here.”
She”™s self-deprecating, but with a cutting edge. She likes telling the story of going into a diner and hearing someone from a booth say loud enough for her to hear: “I hope there”™s food left for us.” She turned on her heels and approached the table. “Yes, I”™m eating light tonight.”
But, she didn”™t leave it at that; she proceeded to inform the diners not to judge someone simply by their mere size.
On her gravestone she wants inscribed: “She always tried to do the right thing.”
And when she isn”™t busy with her wellness project, she presides over her title insurance company in West Nyack. Where she also might be doing some fundraising, or maybe real estate investing, or financial counseling. And if you go to www.titlejunction.com, a visitor can see that she”™s also trying to reform the title insurance industry by getting rid of corrupt operators.
As she indicates on her business card, she is energized.
She and her husband are awaiting delivery of their new home; a 45-foot motor coach. “It”™s a small house, but one big vehicle.”
They”™re downsizing, going from a 3,500-square-foot colonial in Wesley Hills to the motor home.
“I have wanderlust.”
Her first trip might be down to Fort Myers, Florida. She has so many friends on the East coast, she”™s just not sure.
The fat lady is not yet done singing.
