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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.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Rodney James
reviewed Am I thin enough yet? on February 13, 2013
Am I thin enough yet?
It was an okay book. I discovered it in a humanities class when it was on the reading list. I took it out from the library to read again.
It affected me on a personal level. So many things in the book I could relate to.
I liked this book because it wasn't just about eating disorders; it was about the context surrounding the drive to be thin, and proposed the notion of a culture, or a "cult of thinness".
I wished the book did more. Like someone said before, there was nothing in the book that I didn't really know before. But the bigger question I wished was answered was, "Why?" Why are girls dying to be thin, even they know they're hurting themselves, even though they know about the social-historical context surrounding women's bodies. Why do they keep playing into it? Why do I keep playing into it?
My Review of the book two years later:
The author has done extensive research, and that is commendable. Statements are supported by statistics and research studies and interviews, and references are really thorough at the end of each chapter.
So I applaud Hesse-Biber's tireless research that went into this book.
This is the second time I've read the book. I was both shocked and apathetic. The sheer amount of statistics made me apathetic. It was like, after a while I got so bored of reading the same sort of thing reiterated over and over again.
I was shocked that there are teachers out there who truly believe that chubby girls are stupid. But when I thought about it again, it suddenly twigged. When I was a girl in primary school, teachers riffed off of my weight. Of course students did it, but you kind of expected that when you were chubby. Kids can be cruel. But when teachers did it, it had more of an impact.
In grade 11 Physics, my friend was feeling bad about her weight (we had to use our own weights in the experimental calculations). Anyhow, my physics teacher, who was really slender, tall, svelte, told my friend not to feel bad, because she had a lot of "bulk", and she tried to put a positive spin on it. That she would want someone with a lot of "bulk" on her volleyball team. This was a teacher that my friend highly respected.
I was 16 then, and my teacher was God, and I never thought to question this interaction until years later. How could she publicly comment on a teenage girl's weight/body type?
She didn't do it to be mean. She honestly though there was nothing wrong with what she said.
The Culture of Thinness is insidious. It permeates our culture, ourselves, entirely.
It explains why America is obsessed with a certain body type, why culturally-induced eating disorders emerge, why America's obesity epidemic is surging, why fad diets are so popular, and the entire industry that is built on yo-yo dieting.
It creates this:
It creates a circle where those who fit the ideal body type get to stay inside the circle, and everyone else is cast outside. The entire body industry (fad diets, weight loss supplements, magazines, new exercise equipment, good foods vs. bad foods), is based on the attempts for those outside the circle to find their way back in. And most of them can't, thus explaining yo-yo dieting.
If Hesse-Biber ever decides to write a third edition, I hope she will expand the chapter on lesbians/gays, straight men, and racial minorities. Hesse-Biber is, herself, from a position of privilege. I would like to see her expand the chapter by conducting extensive interviews with a large sample size of black women, for example. I fear that many of the things she has said are common assumptions. For example, I've read that women of colour suffer from body image issues perhaps even more than white women, due to the social variables of race and maybe economic class.
This book is excellent from the viewpoint of white women, but I would like to see more diverse representation in terms of the research especially.
In 2013, I gave this book 3 stars. In 2015, I am giving this book 4 stars. This book is fantastic, but there is so much work to be done, in terms of exploring the culture of (whiteness) and thinness.
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