When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies
The authors ofOvercoming Overeating(1988) consider women's eating disorders and distorted self-images. They promote a combination of behavior and thought modification to get at not only eating patterns that contribute to weight problems but also the thought processes that lock women into those patterns in the first place. Their book is in three parts. "Reclaiming Your Appetite" reiterates the message ofOvercoming Overeating--stop dieting and start "demand feeding" or becoming attuned to the body's natural signals of hunger and fullness. "Reclaiming Your Body" explores "bad body fever"--those interior voices that say, for instance, "I hate my fat thighs" when looking in a mirror. "Reclaiming Yourself" helps women think about their bodies and emotions realistically and compassionately. It would be shortsighted to consider this merely a self-help tome. It is that, of course, especially for overweight women, but it is more, because it treats women and weight so complexly, recognizing the societal pressures and internal demands placed on women's bodies and thereby offering something for every woman, overweight or not.Mary Ellen Sullivan