Delta Style: Eve Wasn't a Size 6 and Neither Am I

TV sitcom star (Filthy Rich, Designing Women) Burke describes her journey from beauty pageant winner (18 in all) to TV star and, most recently, tabloid fodder for her weight problems in this ""slim"" but engaging memoir/style book. While pageants gave Burke a start, it was TV that made her a household name, most particularly as the irrepressibly self-absorbed Suzanne Sugarbaker on Designing Women. It was also in TV that she discovered that anything larger than the size six she struggled to maintain was not acceptable; in Hollywood, beauty is apparently only for the slim. Burke points out that a double standard exists in the entertainment industry: ""I went from being Barbie on a pedestal to a sexless, unattractive nonentity... Whereas my husband [actor Gerald McRaney], who is balding, who is getting a little bit of a potbelly, and who is now fifty, nonetheless is expected to romance twenty-year-olds in his onscreen roles."" Now, after years of struggling to maintain a size that pleased TV executives and cameras, Burke has come to terms with her weight. She offers solid advice for maximizing one's appearance and developing the confidence to live up to one's own image, not someone else's. She also includes resources for products and clothing created for the ""real-size"" woman. Burke's fans and anyone who has struggled with weight and attendant self-esteem issues will likely welcome the story of a once slender, still beautiful woman who, rather than conform to an impossible (and possibly unhealthy) standard of body size, has chosen to celebrate what she is rather than to lament what she is not. 48 pages of color photos. First serial to People; author tour. (Mar.)