ABSTRACT
White, middle-to upper-class North American women give every appearance of being obsessed with their weight. Women’s magazines, sold at every check-out counter in supermarkets, regularly feature articles on dieting, especially before the summer. Women are frequently heard saying “You can never be too thin.” Yet researchers have found that women can indeed be too thin. When a Caucasian woman falls below 18% body fat, she stops menstruating, is unable to conceive and carry a child, cannot develop enough breast milk to breastfeed, loses the ability to store estrogen, and develops osteoporosis. Yet, in North America, the woman who has very low amounts of body fat is envied by other white women who feel somehow guilty if their bodies are not as thin.
