ABSTRACT

You and your daughter are bombarded daily by advertisements for taking weight off and keeping it off. It is a national obsession. From our magazines, our billboards, and our television and film images, we get the message that women's bodies are not their own, but society's, and that to be female one must strive to be beautiful, and being beautiful means being thin. We are wiring our jaws, stapling our stomachs, having the fat sucked out of us, getting tummy tucks, taking urine injections, drinking liquid protein, downing diet pills and fat blockers, and buying every new diet book that hits the shelves, the latest of which has us "entering the zone." One of the most amazing things about all this is that, as far as weight loss goes, what we are doing is not working! Statistics on child and adolescent obesity reveal that 2 7% of children and 21% of teens are obese, an increase of 54% in the last 20 years. Furthermore, 50 to 70% of obese youngsters will be obese adults. Even worse, 95 to 98% of those who lose weight gain it back! 6 Think about the impression this is making on your daughter who is learning to be female, trying to fit in and figuring out how to be accepted in this world.