Product Description: Whether they are rich or poor, tall or short, liberal or conservative, most young American women have one thing in common--they want to be thin. And they are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get that way, even to the point of starving themselves. Why are America's women so preoccupied with weight? What has caused record numbers of young women--even before they reach their teenage years--to suffer from anorexia and bulimia? In Am I Thin Enough Yet?, Sharlene Hesse-Biber answers these questions and more, as she goes beyond traditional psychological explanations of eating disorders to level a powerful indictment against the social, political, and economic pressures women face in a weight-obsessed society. Packed with first-hand, intimate portraits of young women from a wide variety of backgrounds, and drawing on historical accounts and current material culled from both popular and scholarly sources, Am I Thin Enough Yet? offers a provocative new way of understanding why women feel the way they do about their minds and bodies. Specifically, Hesse-Biber highlights the various ways in which American families, schools, popular culture, and the health and fitness industry all undermine young women's self-confidence as they inculcate the notions that thinness is beauty and that a woman's body is more important than her mind. The author builds her case in part by letting her subjects tell their own story, revealing in their own words how current standards of femininity lead many women to engage in eating habits that are not only self-destructive, but often akin to the obsessions and ritualistic behaviors found among members of cults. For instance, we meet Delia, a bulimic college senior who makes the startling admission that "my final affirmation of myself is how many guys look at me when I go into a bar." We even learn of six-year-olds like Lauren, already preoccupied with her weight, who considers herself "a real clod" in ballet class because she is not as thin as her peers. We are introduced to women (and men) from different cultures who themselves have acquired eating disorders in pursuit of the American standard of physical perfection. And we learn of the often tragic consequences of this obsession with thinness, as in the case of Janet, who underwent surgery to reduce her weight only to suffer from chronic illness and pain as a result. The book concludes with Hesse-Biber's prescriptions on how women can overcome their low self-image through therapy, spiritualism, and grass-root efforts to empower themselves against a society obsessed with beauty and thinness. Am I Thin Enough Yet? brings into sharp focus the multitude of societal and psychological forces that compel American women to pursue the ideal of thinness at any cost. It will remain a benchmark work on the subject for many years to come.
Disappointing I was hoping this might integrate Mintz's insight that thinness is about the symbolic control of consumption with the diet industry. Well, it did in a way, but only by going the tired route of muddling up eating disorders and attempts to control weight, while seeing 275lb women who wanted to lose as the victims of an uncaring society, just like the 130 lb college girls who also wanted to lose. I'm starting to wonder where, if anywhere, we might find sense on this topic. Here we sit, surrounded by size 20s on one hand at size 2 models on the other. There is a genuine crisis. But I can't recommend anything I've read hitherto - except Sidney Mintz. Curious.
This is quite well-meaning and has some useful stats on the diet industry, but it's preoccupied with gender irrespective of the way men - and now also nonwhites - have been sucked into the same culture. The gender argument is better in Susan Bordo's work.
Horrible Book!! This is the worst book I have ever read. The entire book is filled with made up statistics and made up people, giving made up quotes. The author was not subjective at all in her research and is extremely biased towards men! I think that this author had some serious self issues while writing this book! I would never recommend anyone to read this garbage! The author basically spents the entire time, telling how women always forced to starve themselves to get anywhere in this society, which is far from true! And then places the blame on men for the women that do starve themselves, and then insists that men are very subjected to the pressures of society! To prove this point tell me that last time that a male was in the medai, that has body hair on his entire body!!! DON"T READ THIS BOOK!
Let's all whine "suppression" of women Hesser-Biber uses the subject of women and their body image to give her opinion on how "evil" capitalism is. The first four or so chapters are all about how the horrible, terrible, capitalist pigs who just want money are responsible for eating disorders, low self esteem, and everything else. The rest of the book she spent time telling stories, as though we didn't get the point all ready that people are unsatisfied with how they look. Then she goes on and on about how women are just objects while men are looked at for their intelligence. Oh, but she ignores the fact that there are TONS of shirts out there for girls that say "Boys make great pets" and "Boys are stupid," etc., yet not ONE about girls. Not to mention the negative advertising about men (I saw one ad about a minivan- "Gets more done than your husband ever will").
Don't bother with this book. It's worthless and only got in my way of reading other books that are actually worth my time.
Excellent for beginners, not so useful for researchers "Am I thin Enough Yet?" is a very well-written book, and I strongly recommend it to women (and men!) living in the Western World, where thinness is what defines a woman's self-worth. The author's interviews with college women are fascinating and useful in terms of showing how common subclinical levels of eating disorders are in this particular population. But if you are a therapist/scholar (e.g., eating disorders is my primary research area), or have read books on sociocultural aspects of eating disorders, this book will not add much to your knowledge.
women responsible for grrrl power Once you get past the rhetoric of victimization from the late 80s/early 90s feminist school, the book offers much information and insight from various studies on how an idea has been sold to us by men...and women.
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