Hunger Pains The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness

by Pipher, Mary

• ISBN13: 9780345413932
• ISBN10: 0345413938
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-01-21
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

We live in an appearance-obsessed culture. Fashion ads, magazine covers, TV shows, and movies idealize a body type that is impossible for most real women to achieve. In this comforting, liberating book, Dr. Mary Pipher, bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia, offers advice, counsel, and practical solutions for understanding our needs, our fears, and our many hungers. She shows us how we can at last learn to live at peace with the natural differences in our bodies and appetites. 
The rates of anorexia, bulimia, and depression for women are the highest they have ever been, and begin at ever younger ages. Dr. Pipher reveals how society encourages our misery and prevents us from accepting our looks. Indeed, for many women the humiliation of overweight or obesity is a wound that never heals. Dr. Pipher reminds us that accepting our bodies the way they are is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

Author Biography

Mary Pipher, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and author of Hunger Pains: The American Woman’s Tragic Quest for Thinness, The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families, Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, and The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town. Dr. Pipher’s area of expertise is how culture affects people’s mental health. For her work, she was awarded the American Psychological Association’s Presidential Citation in 1998. She speaks across the country to families, mental health professionals, and educators. She has appeared on Today, 20/20, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio’s Fresh Air. She lives in Nebraska with her husband, Jim.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	VII
CHAPTER ONE Overview	1	(5)
CHAPTER TWO Hunger and Eating	6	(9)
CHAPTER THREE What We See in the Mirror	15	(7)
CHAPTER FOUR Why Diets Don't Work	22	(9)
CHAPTER FIVE Solutions that Don't Work	31	(5)
CHAPTER SIX Clients with Bulimia	36	(10)
CHAPTER SEVEN Bulimia--The Food Addiction	46	(11)
CHAPTER EIGHT Clients with Anorexia	57	(9)
CHAPTER NINE Anorexia--Starvation in the Land of Plenty	66	(10)
CHAPTER TEN Obese Clients	76	(8)
CHAPTER ELEVEN Obesity--Being Fat in America	84	(10)
CHAPTER TWELVE Feeling Good	94	(11)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Helping Our Children	105	(9)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Changing Our Culture	114	(7)
Suggested Reading	121