Over It

National studies show that 65 percent of 11-year-old girls worry that they are too fat; 80 percent of eleven-year-old girls report dieting; and 90 percent of high school juniors and seniors diet regularly. Every year, desperate parents try to save their daughters from starving themselves to death. Yet every year, more girls eat less to look like their favorite supermodels. With this sobering fact in mind, Carol Emery Normandi and Lauralee Roark developed this book based on their ongoing workshops and the feedback of hundreds of young women. They look at the behaviors that may lead to eating disorders and the cultural, emotional, and physical reasons girls obsess about weight and eating. They go on to offer girls and their parents a map and a method for finding a realistic and livable balance. Stories and quotations from girls who have struggled with eating disorders give the book immediacy, and exercises and writing suggestions steer the girls toward a healthy self-image and wholesome eating patterns.