Hunger Pains: The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness [Paperback]

Mary Pipher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 21, 1997

We live in an appearance-obsessed culture. Fashion ads, magazine covers, TV shows, and movies idealize a body type that is impossible for most real women to achieve. In this comforting, liberating book, Dr. Mary Pipher, bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia, offers advice, counsel, and practical solutions for understanding our needs, our fears, and our many hungers. She shows us how we can at last learn to live at peace with the natural differences in our bodies and appetites.

The rates of anorexia, bulimia, and depression for women are the highest they have ever been, and begin at ever younger ages. Dr. Pipher reveals how society encourages our misery and prevents us from accepting our looks. Indeed, for many women the humiliation of overweight or obesity is a wound that never heals. Dr. Pipher reminds us that accepting our bodies the way they are is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345413938
• ISBN-13: 978-0345413932
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Pipher, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding our Families and Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of our Elders. Awarded the American Psychological Association's Presidential Citation, Pipher speaks across the country to families, mental health professionals, and educators, and has appeared on Today, 20/20, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio's Fresh Air.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very true, very real, very helpful, November 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Hunger Pains: The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness (Paperback)

I read this book after being discharged from the hospital for treatment of anorexia. More than any other book, "Hunger Pains" made me examine and question the way food, fat, obesity, and thinness are viewed in our culture. It empowered me to want to recover, and to change not only my own life but the society that produces such horrible diseases as anorexia and bulemia. Dr. Pipher is so eloquent and clear in her depiction of how food is conditioned from childhood to be our enemy, and gives very helpful, practical advice for how to develop a healthy relationship with food and weight. I highly reccomend it to anyone recovering from an eating disorder, and also for every woman and every parent of an adolescent girl. It will give you the power and the motivation to look critically at the world around you and to take control over the way it influences you.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hunger pains, November 9, 2005

By 

E. M. Bristol "bibliophile" (boston, mass) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hunger Pains: The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness (Paperback)

Mary Pipher, author of "Reviving Ophelia," turns her attention to women and their relationships with their bodies. Through case studies, plus personal and clinical experience, she examines eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, obesity, dieting, societal pressures, and how we can help our children and ourselves adopt healthier attitudes toward food. The case studies are candid, often brutally so, and illuminating. While Pipher's suggestions to become more aware and forgiving of ourselves and our bodies may be easier said hen done, they are nonetheless valuable.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's really not about food, but about wanting to be loved, January 14, 2004

By 

cherrie (Woodinville, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hunger Pains: The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness (Paperback)

As a therapist and speaker, I will definitely recommend this book to all women. Is there a woman in America who doesn't struggle with body image, if she is truly honest with herself? The most fascinating parts were those stories of women, and very interesting to see how eating disorders are really about wanting to connect deeply with others...to be loved. If I'm attractive enough, I will be liked, desireable, and loved well. Also the desire for many struggling with anorexia to be compliant and to be small and just disappear are apparent in Pipher's amazing book. She also offers helpful strategies and recommends people to get professional help and to belong to a 12-step. Her emphasis on knowing your feelings and getting them expressed in healthy ways is profoundly important. A client recently told me she was addicted to purging because it felt like her entire system (heart, feelings, soul, problems) were cleansed. The fact that most woman in the book began an eating disorder when a painful experience happened in her life is also noteworthy. Once again, illustrating it's about the heart and control and that we are here on earth for relationships. Bravo, Mary Pipher!