In this frank, compassionate, witty book, a former-fat-camper-turned-journalist investigates current approaches and attitudes toward weight loss to illuminate how they do and don't address the logistical, psychological, and emotional realities for overweight teens.
I think it is sad how her mother and her grandmother are always telling her to eat less. Books with people who have eating disorders or are bulumic kind of interest me mainly since they dont have a happy ending most of the time and it makes you want to read on to find out what happens to the girl (sometimez guy) I am defiently taking this book out.
This message has been edited by chapteraday on Feb 13, 2007 9:33 AM
I am captivated by Abbie Ellin's book, Teenage Waistland. Growing up, our mother also wanted my sisters and me thin, hid food from us, and monitored what we ate, always with the message that "thin" was beautiful in our world. As a result, we learned to binge, sneak, and lie about our eating. Only now, as an adult, do I begin to understand my powerful addiction to food (easily accessible and much more socially acceptable than other alternatives like drugs or alcohol) and how I have used it to suppress emotion, especially those "undesireable negatives" of depression or anger. Most importantly, I replaced my very real need for love with food. Slowly, as an adult, my sisters and I have worked together to heal ourselves, and we are succeeding. Great kudos to Abbie Ellin for writing about this difficult subject with such honesty. I'm buying copies not only for my sisters, friends, and their children, but also for my classroom library and the adolescents I now teach.
