Thin Is Just a Four-Letter Word: Living Fit - for All Shapes and Sizes. - book reviews

Nutrition Health Review, Summer, 1996

With diet books flooding the market, one book stands unique to all the rest. Thin Is Just a Four-Letter Word reaches out to overweight individuals and aims to motivate on the virtues of good health through the story of one woman who has been "there," and who still reaches toward her goal. Author Dee Hakala is what makes this book so special.

At age 31, Dee was morbidly obese, weighing more than 300 pounds, and suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure. After years of weight problems, compulsive eating, and despair, she realized she literally was killing herself. Confined to her home, unable to get off the couch unless she was heading for the refrigerator, and too heavy to play with her two sons, Dee recognized the dire situation she was facing regarding her health. A friend gave Dee a one-month gift certificate to a health club as a Christmas gift, a gift that changed, and saved, her life.

Although embarrassed and desperately wanting to flee from the gym, Dee stuck it out month after month. Afer a year, she found she was keeping up with the classes, losing weight, and feeling better physically and emotionally.

Dee witnessed many members of her class moving to the front by becoming fitness instructors. "Why not me?" she thought. And so she completed certification as an aerobic instructor and started her own class, but with a twist. Dee was still very heavy, weighing more than 200 pounds, and so were her students. Her. unique fitness program not only incorporated exercise but also involved behavior modification and group support. The program was designed for the overweight, medically supervised, or inactive.

Seven years later, Dee is still traveling her road toward personal wellness and is taking thousands of Americans with her. Her fitness program was chosen winner of the Nike Corporation's inaugural Fitness Innovation Award, which provided her with a grant to launch The New Face of Fitness program. Now her program operates in YWCAs and other fitness facilities across the United States.

The New Face of Fitness program goes "beyond simply pounds and inches and reach[es] into issues of self-esteem, body image, personal relationships, family issues, and so much else relating to true health, well-being, and happiness." Her book shares the basics of her program as well as the story of how it came together.

Dee is still working toward her ideal weight, considering herself a "work in progress." But her book not only is empowering to overweight individuals; it is a story of hard times, low self-esteem, searching for truth in oneself, coping with reality, and achieving success and happiness. It is a story everyone can identify with and grow from.

Her message is that "fitness is a lifestyle, not a trip that ends with a specific goal but an ongoing goal in itself; that health and happiness begin on the inside of your body... that you'll never feel good about your body until you feel good about yourself; and that health is not about size or body shape, about inches or pounds, but that it is purely and simply about that organ that beats deep inside your chest." This book is truly motivational for all!