Reprinted from THE JOURNAL NEWS

BIG MAMA is on a roll now.

The words are tumbling out faster than commuters disgorged from a crammed subway. The voice of Big Mama- alias- Linda Izzo- deep and resonant, bellows with all the authority her 350 - pound body can muster.

"You're beaten up in this society for being fat," she begins, her cheeks verging on the shade of her flowing red dress.

This is pure, unadulterated Big Mama. No euphemisms here. Not "overweight." Not "calorically challenged." What you see is what you get: It's "fat." "Fat is not so bad for fat's sake," she continues. "The worst part of it is the stress you put on yourself and the stress foisted upon us by the $35 billion diet industry, which says that that fat is bad.

I'm not anti-thin, and I'm not pro-fat. I'm pro-happiness. I'm pro-live-your-life-now. Don't put off your life trying to lose that 20 pounds. People should lighten up on themselves, no pun intended.

At 41, Izzo is fat, happy, and successful. She shares a business with her husband, David and teaches business courses.

And she recently returned to a singing and entertainment career that began in the mid-1970s with stints in piano bars, at weddings and at bar mitzvahs.

Only this time, she sings and tells stories to spread an upbeat message to angst-ridden people of girth: People should like themselves the way they are, no matter what the scale says.

Izzo makes her debut in this role with "The Big Mama Feel Good Revue" Thursday evening at the Holiday Inn Holidome.

The evening is billed as "an original evening of laughter and joy." Judging by the bravura reception she recently got on the Maury Povich Show, the Holidome audience is in for plenty of laughter and joy, but with a weighty message behind all the mirth and merriment.

Izzo was the lead segment in a Povich show taped Oct. 19 on women who are fat and unembarrassed by it and enjoying prosperous careers. On the program, Izzo opens by belting out what has become her anthem, the "Big Fat Mamas" song. She then chats with Povich about the "metamorphosis" in attitude that enabled her to love herself as she is and to encourage others to do the same.

Linda Izzo never had a figure that would find its way onto the cover of Vogue or Cosmopolitan. As a girl growing up, you could usually find her practicing on the family piano, reading poetry, and writing and singing songs.

Who knows how the excess adipose tissue began accumulating in her hips, thighs, and all the other places women put on weight? By the time she married David at age 29, she was already up to 250 pounds.

Izzo was able to control all the variables in her life-except her weight. She was a magna cum laude graduate of the State University of New York., (majoring in education and sociology), operated a successful business, and had the willpower to quit smoking.

Yet her weight kept soaring. She could write a tome about the futility of dieting.

"I went on the Optifast diet, lost 55 to 60 pounds, then gained it all back and then some," Izzo says, leaning forward in her chair at the kitchen table and pointing her finger for emphasis. "I dieted my way up the scale. I went down a little, then up a little more."

Izzo's epiphany occurred around 1984, as far as she can reckon. She was watching Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show when, all of a sudden, these obese women began modeling clothes. Izzo couldn't believe her eyes.

But that wasn't all. Carson's guest was Carol Shaw, editor of a magazine called Big Beautiful Woman, a fashion magazine for "large-sized women." "Big and beautiful, I would've called that an oxymoron if I knew what it meant then," Izzo says with a robust belly laugh.

Two other factors were pivotal in what she calls her transformation: her doctor telling her that dieting was not a panacea for her weight problem, and studies by such organizations as the National Institute of Health also claiming that dieting is largely ineffective in keeping weight off.

Izzo cites several sources indicating that 95 percent of women who diet eventually gain back what they lost.

"My weight has fluctuated much less than when I was dieting," she says. Of course, having a husband who loves her for what's inside has made it easier for Izzo to accept herself as a whole.

"Love is blind; I knew my husband loved me," she says. "I knew he felt that you can be big and still be OK."

David agrees. "A person's actions and values speak louder than anything else," he says.

Linda Izzo no longer hates the way she looks. She's no longer obsessed with shedding the avoir-dupois to meet America's unrealistic norms for female beauty.

Oh, she does aerobic exercises or treadmill work three to four times a week. But to really make a dent in her bulk she'd have to exercise for several hours a day, she says, and who wants to enslave themselves to workout videos all day and not enjoy all the facets of their lives?

So if people want to snicker when Big Mama walks into a room, let them. It doesn't faze her anymore. If someone tells a joke about fat people, she laughs, too.

Yes, even in these politically correct times when it seems every group once considered fair game is now off-limits, fat people still wear a bull's eye on their backs.

But the ridicule has not stopped people like Linda Izzo from speaking out on behalf of heavy people.

There's even an organization for fat people - The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, based in Sacramento, Calif. NAAFA estimates there are 38 million obese Americans - that is, at least 20 percent over U.S. Government standards for ideal body weight - which translates to about 15 percent of the population.

And NAAFA membership is growing, from about 2,000 in 1989 to more than 5,000 today, says program director Sharon McDonnell. "You can diet and exercise and exercise and exercise to the point where you have to be obsessive, or you can learn to love yourself as you are," McDonnell says. "It all goes back to self-esteem. If you always have to hide your being fat with black clothes, you're not a very happy person. If you accept yourself as you are, and wear vibrant colors, you make yourself feel good.

That description fits Izzo to a T. Her wardrobe is almost exclusively red - bright, attention-getting red.

"Too many fat people don't want to draw attention to themselves, but I'm not hiding anything," she says. "I am what I am. Take it or leave it. If you see me, you're gonna see all of me."

Izzo has only begun to tell the world that being fat is no reason to sign off on life.

The medium may vary, but the message is the same, straight from the heart of Big Mama.

"I'm saying, 'Linda Izzo likes herself the way she is, no matter what she weighs.' If I can do this at my weight, you can feel good about yourself now, too.

"I'm saying, 'Be the best you that you can be today.'"