A touching, tender and at times funny account of a woman's struggle for stature in a 4 foot 8 1/2 inch tall body, Beyond Measure speaks to the heart of soul-breaking attempts to fit an arbitrary and elusive cultural ideal of physical perfection. Being short isn't the problem, Ellen Frankel insists. Instead, the real difficulties lie in the social bias against short people. Ellen shares the difficulties of living short in a world in which stereotypes are based on gender and size. She moves beyond her own experience into the political realm in revealing how pharmaceutical companies--with government backing--are expanding the market for human growth hormone treatment by reclassifying healthy short children as patients in "need" of such injections in hopes of making them taller. She shares the dilemma of being subjected to simultaneous messages that her physical body should be bigger--that is, taller, but not wider--while her expansive spiritual body should be smaller. As a result of too much attention on the external rather than the internal workings of the soul, Ellen flirts with eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with powerful males in an attempt to compensate for her feelings of not "measuring up." In the process, her real self slips farther away. The path out of her dilemma lies in the shadow of the tallest mountain on Earth. It is through a spiritual pilgrimmage to Nepal that Ellen discovers her own strength and spirit, and that we are all dwarfed by Everest and beyond measure.
Ellen Frankel, LCSW worked in the field of eating disorder treatment and prevention for over fifteen years. She has been interviewed on topics related to eating issues, body image,and heightism by national newspapers, traditional and online magazines, as well as national radio programs across the country, and has appeared on local and national television including NBC's Today Show, CBS's Early Show, CNN's Paula Zahn Show, Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto and The Dr. Phil Show. Ellen is a dynamic speaker and frequent presenter at national conferences on a variety of topics including eating disorders, spirituality and heightism.
In addition to her latest book, Syd Arthur, Ellen is the author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth (Pearlsong Press 2006) and is the co-author of The Diet Survivor's Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self-Care (Sourcebooks 2006) and Beyond A Shadow of a Diet: The Therapist's Guide to Treating Compulsive Eating (Brunner-Routledge 2004). She has also published in professional journals and has been featured in local newspapers including The Boston Globe, The Jewish Journal North of Boston and The Jewish Advocate. Ellen lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her husband, Steve, and dog, Karma. She has recently experienced the empty nest first hand as both her daughter and son are currently in college.
Happily for her, they both accepted her friend request on Facebook.
