Am I Thin Enough Yet?: Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity - Hardcover

"Hesse-Biber provides a 'tour de force' examination of the cultural factors that contribute to women's obsession with thinness. She weaves together a review of historical materials, an exploration of current psychological and sociological research, and interviews with women. Am I Thin Enough Yet? is a scholarly yet highly readable analysis of why women get so caught up with the quest for thinness."--Ruth H. Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., President of the Academy for Eating Disorders "The discontent of American women is nowhere stronger than in the way they look--almost everyone thinks she is too fat. Sharlene Hesse-Biber's book combines research data with the voices of lamenting women to show us that we have not come a long way at all! We are right where we started--loathing ourselves and victims of a distorted image. We may think we have risen high in our organizations, but we only care about whether we have risen on our scales. Hesse-Biber's book asks women to liberate ourselves from this meaningless concern."--Shulamit Reinharz, Department of Sociology, Brandeis University "Hesse-Biber provides a 'tour de force' examination of the cultural factors that contribute to women's obsession with thinness. She weaves together a review of historical materials, an exploration of current psychological and sociological research, and interviews with women. Am I Thin Enough Yet? is a scholarly yet highly readable analysis of why women get so caught up with the quest for thinness."--Ruth H. Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., President of the Academy for Eating Disorders "The discontent of American women is nowhere stronger than in the way they look--almost everyone thinks she is too fat. Sharlene Hesse-Biber's book combines research data with the voices of lamenting women to show us that we have not come a long way at all! We are right where we started--loathing ourselves and victims of a distorted image. We may think we have risen high in our organizations, but we only care about whether we have risen on our scales. Hesse-Biber's book asks women to liberate ourselves from this meaningless concern."--Shulamit Reinharz, Department of Sociology, Brandeis University "Hesse-Biber provides a 'tour de force' examination of the cultural factors that contribute to women's obsession with thinness. She weaves together a review of historical materials, an exploration of current psychological and sociological research, and interviews with women. Am I Thin Enough Yet? is a scholarly yet highly readable analysis of why women get so caught up with the quest for thinness."--Ruth H. Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., President of the Academy for Eating Disorders "The discontent of American women is nowhere stronger than in the way they look--almost everyone thinks she is too fat. Sharlene Hesse-Biber's book combines research data with the voices of lamenting women to show us that we have not come a long way at all! We are right where we started--loathing ourselves and victims of a distorted image. We may think we have risen high in our organizations, but we only care about whether we have risen on our scales. Hesse-Biber's book asks women to liberate ourselves from this meaningless concern."--Shulamit Reinharz, Department of Sociology, Brandeis University "Hesse-Biber provides a 'tour de force' examination of the cultural factors that contribute to women's obsession with thinness. She weaves together a review of historical materials, an exploration of current psychological and sociological research, and interviews with women. Am I Thin Enough Yet? is a scholarly yet highly readable analysis of why women get so caught up with the quest for thinness."--Ruth H. Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., President of the Academy for Eating Disorders "The discontent of American women is nowhere stronger than in the way they look--almost everyone thinks she is too fat. Sharlene Hesse-Biber's book combines research data with the voices of lamenting women to show us that we have not come a long way at all! We are right where we started--loathing ourselves and victims of a distorted image. We may think we have risen high in our organizations, but we only care about whether we have risen on our scales. Hesse-Biber's book asks women to liberate ourselves from this meaningless concern."--Shulamit Reinharz, Department of Sociology, Brandeis University

Sharlene Hesse-Biber builds on interviews with young women concerning their weight and body image in order to connect women's eating patterns to images in popular culture. Linking eating disorders to contemporary social, cultural, and economic pressures on women to be thin, she argues that diet and workout industries profit from this cult of thinness and help to perpetuate it.