Body Wars: Making Peace with Women's Bodies (an Activist's Guide)

For yourself, for your children, for the women and girls in your life. Read this book! It was like having the wool pulled from eyes. I can finally see the lies for what they were. I was angry about these "ideals" for so long and the pressure to get thinner. Now I know why, because it was all a lie to kepp women in their place, make money, and destroy the self esteem of nearly every woman in the Western world.

A clinical psychologist, Margo Maine, Ph.D. is also known for her accomplishments as a lecturer, consultant, researcher, and author. Additionally, she's the Director of the Eating Disorder Program at the Institute of Living and is on the boards of numerous other advisory boards. In the course of her work, she realized that "a new war was being waged: an assault on women's bodies by an economic system and culture intent on keeping them in their place." She wrote Body Wars: Making Peace with Women's Bodies as an activist's guide for helping women overcome the self-hatred and body dissatisfaction that lead to eating disorders. How their bodies look is brought to their attention at a very early age for women. Even quite young hildren learn that their ppearance is not satisfactory, and they are taught they must change it, usually by restricting their food intake... She emphasizes repeatedly that women truly do have more to offer than their appearance. Dr. Maine also devotes chapters to plastic surgery, violence against women, ageism, sports, and ballet. She includes a special section for teachers and how they can help their students develop a healthy attitude toward their bodies. The final chapter is for men and the unrealistic standards for appearance that they are facing on an increasing basis."We've been talking about the problem long enough: we must move into action," Dr. Maine says. Body Wars provides readers with all the information and tools they need to take action. It's an essential reference for all women: for themselves, and for their daughters.

As a PhD student in the biological sciences, I have access to all of the scientific articles referenced in this book, most of which are from very reputable sources. Being obese and having been told my whole life that I am unhealthy for carrying a few extra pounds, I checked out many of these articles and found that the author's statements about how harmful dieting is, and how a little extra weight isn't necessarily unhealthy, were completely accurate. One reviewer complained that this book was too factual, but for me it was the fact that it was so accurate that made it very therapeutic and encouraging. It gave me the power to be mad at those who are actually causing our society to be so harmful to women, rather than being mad at myself.

`Body Wars' is both an excellent reference and an interesting book. It reads like a collection of essays with a unifying theme and is a must have particularly for young women. This book is not only for overweight women but for women who feel like they do not measure up to the supermodel ideal. It has chapters that delve into magazine advertising and its effect on women, weightism, which is the politically correct form of prejudice among other things. But unlike most books of this type it does not only tell us what is wrong but it tells us how to change what's wrong. The author Margo Maine, Ph.D. does this through her resource lists at the end of each chapter that has phone numbers, addresses and names of places like the MS. Foundation and the Center for Media Literacy among other things.

This is a great eye opening book! Great for resources and information about how we as a society harm our bodies and our lives. It also gives helpful suggestions and ideas for activism to fight the war against believing we are only about our bodies. Many statistics and helpful information, yet written in an interesting and easy to follow format.Buy it! You'll love it!