Making Light Of Being Heavy by Kandy Siahaya

Kandy Siahaya is a "fat chick".  She's had a weight issue most of her life, and is what most people and doctors would classify as obese, being over 350 pounds.  Making Light of Being Heavy is her book detailing her life and struggles with weight her entire life.

She starts by telling of her childhood; being the largest kid in every class she was in; having the boys on the bus start the "Hey, hey, hey, it's Fa-a-a-a-t Albert" whenever she got on the bus.  Clothes were an issue and she was steered to the Chubby section, which specialized in clothes that were never quite the same as the cool ones the slim girls were weighing.

Siahaya believes that overweight is less a matter of what is eaten and how much exercise is done.  Rather, she believes in a genetic factor as the overall determinant of whether a person will be slim or overweight in their life.  She cites an interesting study that matched adopted children against their adoptive parents and their birth parents.  There was a positive correlation between the adopted children and their birth parents.  If the parents were overweight, the children tended to be, and the same held true for slim parents and kids.  There was no correlation with the adoptive parents, and Siahaya believes this shows that eating styles and family lifestyles (active or sedentary) has little effect on how a person's body will end up.

There are chapters that discuss the various diets she has gone on over the years, with sample week's meals laid out.  She discusses the fact that healthy foods are so much more expensive than the unhealthy diets many have.  She also discusses various exercise programs, and how many are difficult for the truly obese who can not flexibly move and are often too heavy for the exercise equipment limits.

As the title implies, the tone is light.  The author has maintained a positive feeling about herself, and refuses to let her life be limited by this issue.  This book is recommended for heavy people looking for insight and for slimmer individuals who can have little experience with the issues discussed here.