About-Face  "promotes positive self-esteem in girls and women of all ages, sizes, races and backgrounds through a spirited approach to media education, outreach and activism. ... mission: To encourage a healthy skepticism about media images and the messages of popular culture; empower young people to feel confident about their individuality, their abilities and their bodies; encourage individuals to identify and give voice to their opinions... etc

Body Outlaws  "The premise of Body Outlaws is that it's become so unfathomable (and unsupported culturally) for a woman to like her body that if she does, she becomes marginalized from the mainstream. Like an outlaw, she lives on the fringes of the culture, considered odd because she's not obsessing over her appearance. My hope is to wake people up to the absurdity of this thinking and encourage them to "riot instead of diet," as my friend Pia says." Ophira Edut

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. "is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. A widely published writer and speaker... she is best known for her award-winning documentaries Killing Us Softly, Slim Hopes, and Pack of Lies. ... She is a visiting scholar at Wellesley College..

Natural Breast Enlargement Through Hypnosis - a program by Wendi Friesen

The Real Women Project
".. helps women realize and celebrate their inherent beauty, dignity and capacity for transformation. Rooted in the belief that self-acceptance is the foundation for mental, physical, and spiritual health, the Real Women Project uses sculpture, poetry, video, music and storytelling to inspire dialogue and self-awareness, to broaden our definition of beauty, and to deepen our experience of well-being."
   

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Body image issues seem to have become synonymous with anorexia, bulimia, bingeing, starving, overeating, obesity -- the highly visible area of eating disorders. 

But body image is a much broader idea. It is linked to self-image, self-esteem, and self-confidence. 

It is the sense you have of yourself as a person. And once you see that body image is a much larger issue, you can begin to understand it in a larger and more accurate context. 

Many mothers correctly perceive that the passage from childhood to adulthood is a lot more complex for their daughters than it was for them.

The pressure on adolescent girls is more intense; their choices are less clear; their reactions are more extreme.

Today getting from twelve to twenty in one sane, self-confident piece is a challenge up there with scaling Mount Everest. ...

These days most of that definition begins, and sometimes ends, with how they look. Who they are feels more about what’s outside and less about what’s inside, because they invest so much of their sense of self in their bodies. ....Stephanie Pierson.. [from the book]
 

All the messages that you send your daughter about your body and hers, both spoken and unspoken, from the time she is a baby to adolescence, have a profound effect on how she feels about herself," says psychotherapist Phyllis Cohen .. [Lifetime magazine May/June 2003 lifetimemag.com]

But beneath the tranquil surface, we see signs of this crisis everywhere. Millions of men are sacrificing important things in their lives to exercise compulsively at the gym, hoping for a bigger chest or flatter stomach.. buying billions of dollars worth of "muscle-building" food supplements and diet aids... A large group of men has developed eating disorders..

Girls today grow up believing that "good looks" - rather than "good works" - are the highest form of female perfection. In the past, greater maternal involvment and more single sex groups, such as the Girl Scouts, supported the whole girl, placing greater emphasis on internal rather than external qualities.

But in the twentieth century, that "protective umbrella" disappeared, popular culture became more powerful, and expectations about physical perfection increased so that American girls came to define themselves more and more through their bodies.

"Our bodies are integral to our lives - our dreams, our desires. ... Where we live, our income levels, our health, our abilities, even how we look help shape our personal and social realities. [The book] examines this complex relationship.

In sixteen chapters, activists, writers, scholars and healthcare professionals demonstrate how social and cultural expectations mould our realities, and how our perceptions of self shape our being in the world. ... contributors look at women's lives - with particular attention paid to the intersection of gender, race, ability, sexual orientation and class - from the inside out. 

They examine how women's bodies and lives are altered by social, personal and cultural expectations, and how women continue to make their bodies and their lives fit into the images constructed by popular culture, the media and the medical and psychiatric establishments. [The book] shows us how women in Canada are developing strategies to resist negative constructs of women. [publisher statement]

To those women I would say, "OK, sister! Go do what you need to do, but while you're at it try and make this a world where you don't have to cut up your body in order to have all of the options that men have!"

[What do you think of women who buy into the beauty myth and then shame others for not doing the same?]

Women have to stop policing each other's appearance and each other's sexuality. I had the extraordinary experience of getting out there to protest men judging women's appearance and sexuality only to find women do it to each other on an equally destructive level. Women can't ask that the dominant forces in society stop treating us a certain way if we don't stop treating each other in that way.****Naomi Wolf**[from eye.net interview by Donna Lypchuk]

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Eating for Beauty: For Women & Men : Introducing a Whole New Concept of Beauty What It Is, and How You Can Achieve It -
by David Wolfe

The idea for the book Eating For Beauty came to me a number of years ago while walking through the streets of Stockholm, Sweden...

"Anyone can benefit from David Wolfe's knowledge and understanding of raw food nutrition. Eating For Beauty will open your eyes to the hidden treasures of a healthy diet and open your body to a fulfilling and vital existence."

- Anthony Robbins - author of Awaken The Giant Within and Unlimited Power

"Thank you for presenting us with such a 'beautiful' rendition of gracefulness that is often not fully understood or appreciated. Of all the books I have seen and read on beauty and nutrition - none have captured the essence of 'beauty' so sensitively - you reached the very heart of the matter. Thank you again David,,,"

Janice Franks, Connecticut

quotes from author site

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---The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe and Other 
Stories of Women and Fatness - by Susan Koppelman

When thinking about the emotionally overloaded subject of women and fatness remember that what is most valued in our current culture is a particular ethnic appearance, one that reflects an exaggerated version of one minority ethnicity: the upper class Anglo-Saxon.

Every embrace of that exaggerated and, for most of us, impossible "ideal," represents a rejection of the body types representative of all the other ethnic and racial groups who are part of our polyglot American society.

The standards of that class are imposed on everyone. Those who fail to “measure up” are subjected to harsh judgment.

It is an historical aberration but one that, nonetheless, causes some of us living in this historical moment who do not or cannot conform to “body fashion/fascism” intense anguish, shame, guilt, and despair.

Others of us feel rage. Still others of us are outraged and spurred to political activism. ....

Amazon.com shows the wrong cover. The real cover [above] is a terrific upbeat work by Beryl Cook, the wonderful English artist.

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---Deenie - by Judy Blume

    [reader review by Teryn from Ravensdale, Washington:]

The book.. is filled with many hopes and dreams. It's about a girl named Deenie and how her mother has her life worked out to be a model.

Along with her mom's help, she hopes she will be able to fulfill that dream. Deenie's mom is always pushing her to be the best she can be and tries to help her succeed in all the aspects of her life.

One day at school she was trying out for cheerleading and her coach noticed that there was something wrong with her back. ...

Eventually, Deenie found out the news that she had scoliosis. Deenie would have to wear a brace for four years to fix the curve of her spine.

All of her hopes and dreams of becoming a model were shattered!

She has to go through tons of other appointments to fix her spine. After Deenie gets her brace her biggest challenge was trying to explain it to everyone at school.

She also had to overcome the challenges of wearing the brace from her hip to her neck. How will she ever face the more difficult times ahead of her?

Read Deenie to see what happens to Deenie and if her dreams of becoming a model ever come true. This book was a great book full of love, worries, hope, and adventure.

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For the past 10 years, the 30-year-old author, performer and acivist has toured college campuses and communities with her interactive performances, designed to provole women -- and men -- into changing how they think about their bodies and their lives.

"I see so many women who hate their bodies and feel like their lives can't start until they lose five pounds."

Inside the bathroom stall was a sign: "Eating disorders can kill." Below that, someone had written "I'm already dead." Below that, a second woman had scribbled, "So am I."

I suddenly realized I wasn't alone, and that I was angry," Jessica recalls. I thought, This is how we talk about it? On a bathroom wall? The whole issue was so rooted in shame."