What are you putting off while you wait to lose that last 10 — or 20 or 50 — pounds?

        Wearing a bathing suit?

        Going back to school?

        Looking in the mirror?

        More than 60 percent of the adults in the United States are overweight and the average American woman wears a size 14, according to federal statistics.

        Make no mistake about it, being substantially overweight is bad for your physical health. (Go to Cincinnati.com for details on how it can hurt, even kill you.) But not doing what makes you happy, tolerating size discrimination or suffering social ostracizing is bad for your mental health, experts say.

        Some people let their size limit their lives. They won't be photographed, go to the beach, join clubs, ride airplanes, sing in their church choir or enjoy any number of things they love to do because they're embarrassed by their size.

        This can be a negative cycle: avoiding fun activities leads to a sedentary lifestyle which leads to weight gain which leads to avoiding fun activities.

        Taking a positive attitude can turn things around. Many overweight people are learning that living life large — no matter your size — means living happy.

        “Body size doesn't make you happy,” says Charleen Flick, 57, of Lebanon. “They make beautiful clothes in a 1X. I have gorgeous clothes.”

        Mrs. Flick, the tax superintendent for the city of Centerville, wears a size 18 and is the proud owner of 10 swim ensembles, complete with matching hats, sandals and sarongs. She says she still tries to “lose a little or not gain” weight, but she's not putting anything off until the pounds disappear.

Sabrina Sharp

        “I'm not going to what-if myself or "When I lose weight, I'll go to the beach,' or anything like that,” she says.

        She hasn't always been this confident. Her attitude came “with wisdom and age and my wonderful husband, Mark, who thinks I'm gorgeous.”

        Overweight people “are the last people we're allowed to make fun of,” says Dr. Ann Kearney-Cooke, director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute in Montgomery. “Overweight people experience a lot of discrimination. They're often made fun of. That affects you.”

        Pressure to be thin is so intense that many people try to lose weight because they think it will make them happy or popular — not because it will make them healthy.

        “The average woman is a size 14. That's me. I'm average,” says Chris Bobel, director of the University of Cincinnati's Women's Center. “But I don't live in the world as an average woman. I am described as fat. So we have this real sort of discrepancy. I'm average, yet I'm not treated as average. I'm treated as fat, as sloppy, as abnormal, as unfit. Most people fall outside society's definition of what is acceptable. That's problematic. We're searching for something that's unrealistic, that we can't attain, that might be unhealthy.”

        It took years of counseling - plus breast reduction - before Judy Lococo, 60, of Pleasant Ridge could wear a swimsuit in public.

        For the last two years, she's gone weekly to a water exercise class “and I don't care who's looking,” she says.

        Sabrina Sharp and Angela Drye are tickled when people look — the two are plus-size models for New View Model and Talent Management Group in Evendale.

        Ms. Sharp is 6 feet 2 inches and a size 16. She tried to get into modeling when she was 14, but was told she was too heavy. “Every place I went to, the agency said, "You need to be thinner. You need to be thinner.' It just got to the point where I was starving myself and there was no need for it. I kind of gave up.”

Angela Drye

        Last year, she tried again, and was signed by New View. She's done runway shows and print campaigns for Parisian and Elder-Beerman.

        “I'm 6-foot-2. I am not a size 8. I will never be a size 8,” Ms. Sharp, 22, of Goshen, says. “I finally had to get comfortable with myself. I like me. I like my curves.”

        Ms. Drye, 31, of Springdale, has been modeling for about six years.

        She's 6 feet tall, wears a size 18 and stays busy with runway shows and print campaigns for Saks Fifth Avenue, Sears, Elder-Beerman, Marshall Fields and other stores.

        Plus-size super models such as Emme and Kate Dillon are hot right now, a trend Ms. Drye calls “fabulous.”

        “All you see right now is the real, real thin, straight up and down look, and that trend is leaving,” she says.

        “There are the Cindy Crawfords and the Tyra Bankses, but you've got to find what works for you. You've got to find yourself and love yourself before you can show what beauty you do have.”

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