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1. 1.

   
   
   
   The Garden of Eating: Food, Sex, and the Hunger for Meaning (Chap. 6 "The Gospel according to Weight Watchers") » Read Now

   by Jeremy Iggers. 196 pgs.

   Collections: Entire Library

   ...and body images has created a weight-loss industry whose revenues are estimated to...clubs, commercial and medical weight-loss programs and centers, low-calorie...books...
   
2. 2.

   
   
   
   Am I Thin Enough Yet?: The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity (Chap. 3 "There's No Business like the Body Business: Food, Dieting, and Recovery") » Read Now

   by Sharlene Hesse-Biber. 191 pgs.

   Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

   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...

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   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.

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3. 3.

   
   
   
   Eating Problems: A Feminist Psychoanalytic Treatment Model ("The Diet Empire" begins on p. 32) » Read Now

   by Carol Bloom, Andrea Gitter, Susan Gutwill, Laura Kogel, Lela Zaphiropoulos. 261 pgs.

   Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

   In this insightful analysis of and treatment guide for eating problems, the authors develop a clinically useful theory of how society's injunctions about the 'right' body and the 'right' diet become inscribed in patients and join with their intrapsychic emotional life.
   
4. 4.

   
   
   
   Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic (Chap. Eight "One Pill Makes You Larger, One Pill Makes You Small") » Read Now

   by Robert Pool. 292 pgs.

   Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

   When the leptin gene was discovered in 1994, news articles predicted that there might soon be an easy, pharmaceutical solution to the growing public health crisis of obesity. Yet this scientific breakthrough merely proved once again how difficult the fight against fat really is. Despite the many...

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   When the leptin gene was discovered in 1994, news articles predicted that there might soon be an easy, pharmaceutical solution to the growing public health crisis of obesity. Yet this scientific breakthrough merely proved once again how difficult the fight against fat really is. Despite the many appetite-suppressants, diet pills, and weight-loss programs available today, approximately 30 percent of Americans are obese. And that number is expanding rapidly. Fat is the engaging story of the scientific quest to understand and control body weight. Covering the entire twentieth century, Robert Pool chronicles the evolving blame-game for fat--from being a result of undisciplined behavior to subconscious conflicts, physiological disease, and environmental excess. Readers in today's weight-conscious society will be surprised to learn that being overweight was actually encouraged by doctors and popular health magazines up until the 1930s, when the health risks associated with being overweight were publicly recognized. Thus began decades of research and experiments that subsequently explained appetite, metabolism, and the development of fat cells. Pool effectively reanimates the colorful characters, curious experiments, brilliant insights and wrong turns that led to contemporary scientific understanding of America's epidemic. While he acknowledges the advances in the pharmacological fight against flab, he underscores that the real problem of obesity is not losing the weight but keeping it off. Drugs offer a quick fix, but they aren't the ultimate answer. American society must remedy the unhealthy daily environments of its cities and towns, and those who have struggled with their weight and have experienced the "yo-yo" cycle of dieting must understand the underlying science of body weight that makes their struggle more than a question of willpower.

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5. 5.

   
   
   
   Selling Stereotypes: Weight Loss Infomercials, Sexism, and Weightism, in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research » Read Now

   by Bruce Blaine, Jennifer McElroy. 7 pgs.

   Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

   ...obesity: An alternative to a focus on weight loss. Journal of Social Issues, 55, 221-259...Television situation comedies: Female weight, male negative comments, and...
   
6. 6.

   
   
   
   The First Amendment and FTC Weight-Loss Advertising Regulation, in Journal of Consumer Affairs » Read Now

   by Chester S. Galloway. 11 pgs.

   Collections: Entire Library

   ...media vehicles (FTC 2003). The weight-loss industry consists mainly of small and...Accordingly, regulation of the weight-loss industry by the FDA appears...
   
7. 7.

   
   
   
   The Beauty Myth and Female Consumers: The Controversial Role of Advertising, in Journal of Consumer Affairs » Read Now

   by Debra Lynn Stephens, Ronald Paul Hill, Cynthia Hanson. 17 pgs.

   Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

   ...of the food industry approached...the average weight (in relation...top weight-loss clinics...1990 the diet industry was hit by...Physicians Weight Loss Center...
   
8. 8.

   
   
   
   Weighty Issues: Semiotic Notes on Dieting as a Secular Ritual, in Health Communication » Read Now

   by Joachim Knuf, John Caughlin. 19 pgs.

   Collections: Entire Library

   ...estimated the U.S. diet industry to be worth some...nutri/systeme (a weight control program...often amazing weight loss made possible by...often accompany weight-loss...