Comments on: A long and enthusiastic review of “Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters”

By: Abby

Abby — Mon, 14 May 2007 19:22:01 +0000

I’m not entirely sure how I found your blog, but I wanted to let you know I linked to it from mine (this entry in particular). Thank you for reviewing this book - it looks pretty damn interesting!

By: pigeon

pigeon — Mon, 14 May 2007 07:48:00 +0000

stumbled over here via feministe’s sunday plugs.

i’ve been debating whether or not i wanted to read the book (i’ve become very choosy about which books on eating disorders i’ll read these days outside of academic contexts, it’s not worth it to read something that’ll get me all huffy if i don’t have to) & after reading your review, i think i will pick up a copy.

i don’t have much to add, though i find this part you quoted so true:

Most mothers do the best they can so that they do not pass on their pathologies to their daughters and sons. Even the moms who say one thing but model another are hoping that their children won’t discern the difference… Yet we soaked up what they did and how they felt.

strangely enough, my mother is one of the healthiest women i know when it comes to food & body imagine– i learned my behaviors all on my own– but the older i get, the more it’s clear that a lot of the messages i got about how to deal with my emotions i got from her, which i think had a lot of do with why i leaned towards using an eating disorder as a coping mechanism. and it was very much “say one thing, but model another” — i always encouraged to express my thoughts and opinions, but i never saw her express much in the way of emotion, especially “negative” emotions.

as someone who works with young kids and wants to have her own one day, it’s something i’ve become incredibly conscious of– kids notice what you do just as much as, if not more so, what you say, and if the two don’t match up, it very well may negate much of the good stuff you’re telling them.

and not particularly on topic, but i’ve really enjoyed what little i’ve read poking around just now.

By: Beth

Beth — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:35:17 +0000

Thanks for your continuing discussion of this book. Being in seminary, I don’t tend to pick up much outside reading, but your previous posts about it intrigued me, and now I’m having trouble putting it down to read about liturgy and semiotics. There’s a lot of good stuff in there so far, but I think I value most the way she questions the “normalcy” of undiagnosed/undiagnosable disordered eating. I find a lot of that discussion both shocking (because what she describes in those sections is indeed so familiar to me) and healing. It’s actually informing my thought a lot while I work on a sermon for a service of public healing in liturgy class next week.

By: LMYC

LMYC — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:42:54 +0000

Interesting. I’ve always assumed (mostly because everyone else does, with varying degrees of animosity) that I never had body issues because I’m thin. But when you brought up the parent things … I recall no distinct opinion my mom held about her body, and I don’t recall any change in my dad’s opinion toward me when I started to go through puberty. They were good parents, but in many ways I was also a remarkably clueless kid (although always devoted to my dad, so I’m sure I would have picked up on something had it been there). My mom never dieted, once, that I remember. She was never fat nor thin noticeably. Thin when younger, then a bit rounder after having kids. *shrug* I’m very grateful for the fact that it was all a nonissue for them.

Not to say I have no other annoyances that come with having The Wrong Body (ie, a non-male one), but at the very least, fscking starving myself ain’t one of `em.

By: My Blog » To start with, put the upper molar and the lower molar together

My Blog » To start with, put the upper molar and the lower molar together — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:00:25 +0000

[…] A long and enthusiastic review of ?Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters? « This exercise is surely effective because it hits right to the root of the problem […]

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sat, 12 May 2007 04:34:32 +0000

Make sure you write a review, Merm!

By: Mermade

Mermade — Sat, 12 May 2007 02:17:48 +0000

I got my copy this afternoon. I can’t wait to start reading it.

By: Shawna R. B. Atteberry

Shawna R. B. Atteberry — Fri, 11 May 2007 21:55:24 +0000

I plan on getting this book this month. It sounds like a great book. Thank you for the review.

By: Tam

Tam — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:07:55 +0000

It can’t help that young girls (children) are continually praised as being pretty or cute. That has to send the message that being pretty is important, which is one of the critically wrong messages (IMO) of our culture. It’s the reason I always inwardly cringe when someone says something like “fat is beautiful” - they’re trying to promote fat (or whatever) acceptance by arguing it satisfies the standard that is the whole problem to begin with.

I feel lucky that my own body image problems are pretty minimal. I usually like the way that my body looks, and this is despite the fact that I’m clinically obese (thus not, in fact, attractive). Actually, I say “despite”, but I’m not sure the two are related at all; plenty of women who would be judged as attractive have issues. Maybe getting fat forced me to stop caring.

My own mother (who is also fat) has repeatedly declared that she would “rather be dead than fat.” Great role model there.