Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body (Hardcover)

by Courtney E. Martin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
It is no longer enough for girls to be good, says journalist and teacher Martin in her debut book. Girls must now be perfect, and that need for perfection is played out in women's bodies. But beneath the high-achieving "perfect girl" surface, seven million American girls and women suffer from an eating disorder; 90% of high school–aged girls think they are overweight. Drawing on more than 100 interviews with women and girls ages 9–29, Martin constructs a cultural critique of a generation of girls steeped in the language of self-control. "If I'm not thinking about my body or calories, I'm probably sleeping or dead," a 14-year-old confesses. Such heartbreaking quotes fill the book and fuel Martin's anger. In chapters devoted to the influence of "porn culture," the role fathers play in shaping their daughters' self-image, eating disorders among athletes, the narrowly circumscribed role of women in hip-hop and more, Martin explores the forces that drive young women to sacrifice themselves on the altar of perfection. A self-described perfect girl, Martin brings a personal perspective to the topic. If occasionally overambitious in her reach, Martin has a valuable mission: calling on young women to harness their intellectual and emotional energy and learn to enjoy their bodies, "imperfect" though they may be. (Apr.)
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Review
"These beautifully written, sensitive, and empathetic stories tell the heart-wrenching truth about the critical, harmful way women and girls regard themselves -- with normalized self-hate. Martin gives voice to so many who are suffering, many whose self-hatred has insidiously become part of everyday conversation. She offers the reader deep insight based on extensive research and authentic interviews, and demands that we stop settling for self-hate. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters will undoubtedly change lives."

-- Dr. Robin Stern, feminist psychoanalyst and author of The Gaslight Effect

"Original, passionate, and important, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters shines a light on a troubling trend in young women's development. Martin's gripping stories give us a new way to understand the plight of the struggling young women we love, if not a new way to think about ourselves."

-- Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

"Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is a courageous, intelligent, and provocative exploration of the matrix of psychosocial forces that influence the development of contemporary young women. Thoughtfully researched and rich with trenchant insights, compelling interviews, and eye-opening anecdotes, I will recommend it without reservation to patients and colleagues alike. Ms. Martin is to be commended for the lucid and astute perspective she brings to these complicated but essential matters."

-- Brad Sachs, PhD, psychologist and author of When No One Understands, The Good Enough Teen, and The Good Enough Child

"Courtney Martin's book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, is a courageous, intelligent, warm, and insightful deconstruction of the complicated experience of becoming a woman for this generation. She tells a new story, from the inside looking out, at the ongoing issues that anyone tuned into the media or in relationship to a young woman sees but may not understand. Her relentlessly honest and exposing account of interviews, research, and personal experience reveals a daunting reality: the self-destructive ways women cope with the impossible pressures and expectations of a society obsessed with achievement and perfection. Anyone wanting to know the truth of how our vital, brilliant, talented young female generation is slowly being eroded, and also wants to travel the road to re-empowerment, must read this."

-- Ellen M. Boeder, M.A., L.P.C., primary therapist, The Eating Disorder Center of Denver

"An engaging and heartbreaking account of the tragic circumstances girls and women find themselves in today as they struggle to find a body they can feel secure with."

-- Susie Orbach, author of Fat Is a Feminist Issue

"Reading this book, I said to myself, 'If only.' If only girls were demanding applause instead of starving for food, thirsting for knowledge instead of hungering for support, and knowing how perfectly perfect they are in every way instead of letting doubt run rampant. Fortunately, Courtney E. Martin is here to move women in the right direction. She writes about body image with passion, intelligence, savvy, and curiosity. Best of all, readers will know that this will be just the first of Martin's many worthy reads."

-- Wendy Shanker, author of The Fat Girl's Guide to Life

"For health professionals, Courtney Martin gives an indispensable guide into food behavior. Using compelling personal insights, she effortlessly conveys the tangle of nutritional health and disordered eating. Stories of dieting daughters and young women seeking their worth in weight are told with uncommon wit and wisdom. Tragicomic accounts of Martin's college experience combine with sharp analysis that anyone can enjoy and employ, from dietitians and physicians dealing with full blown eating disorders to parents and their children who face the impossible paradox of perfect girls and starving daughters."

-- Sharron Dalton, Professor of Nutrition and Registered Dietitian, New York University and author of Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do About the Fatness Epidemic

"It was INSPIRING, NECESSARY, and REVOLUTIONARY for me to read this book. Courtney E. Martin has written one of the most important, comprehensive looks into the malnourished souls of today's girls and women. You owe it to yourself to read this book and give one to every daughter, mother, and woman you know."

-- Jessica Weiner, advice columnist and author of Life Doesn't Begin 5 Pounds from Now

"Martin presents an inspirational collection of research and stories about the problem young girls are tormented by in today's society. No ethnic group is excluded from this epidemic. Perfect girls are not anorexic daughters. The desire to be thin is masking the true underlying problem -- the desire to be loved and acknowledged. This book is an invaluable tool for all of us. A MUST READ!"

-- Laura E. Corio, MD, author of The Change Before the Change

"With a sharp analysis communicated through heartbreaking stories, Martin exposes how hard most women have it these days when it comes to being secure in their physical appearance. Martin delves into the psychological, emotional and social side effects of a generation gone perfect. Anyone who has ever felt that twinge of not being good enough, skinny enough, pretty enough for the world at large should sit down with this book and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. We can only begin to act on our own behalf once we see how comprehensive this social disorder is -- Martin makes it clear that the time to act is now!"

-- Adrienne Maree Brown, Executive Director, The Ruckus Society

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (April 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743287967
• ISBN-13: 978-0743287968
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #140,526 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book will rock your world and rip open your heart, April 27, 2007

By	Kimberlee Auerbach (New York, New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You know about eating disorders. Who doesn't? You might have a friend who eats every other day. Another friend who throws up after lunch. You, yourself, might eat a whole pint of ice cream late a night while watching Buffy reruns and hate yourself for it afterwards. So, what will Courtney Martin's book do for you? Why this book? Why now? Well, I'll tell you. Courtney is the first non-expert, non-psychologist, normal girl, outraged and passionate, to write about the subject. Reading her book feels very insider. She got the real dirt, the stuff people don't talk about or admit, and it never, not once, feels exploitative. She interviews her subjects with love, compassion and empathy and gets to the bottom of this very real, very dark phenomenon in our culture today. In order to change, we have to make the dark light (not to butcher Jung). That is what Courtney Martin does. She makes the dark light and urges women not to settle for self-hatred. If you do hate yourself, don't worry. She won't judge you. Reading her book feels like the hug you never got, like the "you're beautiful no matter what you weigh" that you never heard. I guarantee you will feel beautiful by the end of this book and be inspired to change.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant, Vital, Raw and Compassionate Look at "the ugliness underneath all of our prettiness", June 22, 2007

By	Rachel Kramer Bussel "Cupcakes Take the Cake ... (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

To say I was blown away by Courtney E. Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, would be a huge understatement. I've read lots of books on eating disorders, having gone through a bout of anorexia and bulimia in college, and struggled with "disordered eating" and body image issues ever since. Martin's tone hits the perfect edge between journalistic and compassionate; one never gets the sense that she is talking down to her readers or has conquered all these issues and is now looking at them from a distance. By including her own stories and those of her peers, she personalizes the issue, as both someone who's been "on the edge" of developing an eating disorder as well as someone caring for people with eating disorders. One of the most poignant moments here, in fact, is when a friendship ends over one woman confronting another over her eating issues.



Martin is angry, but also hopeful, and, most of all, non-judgmental. Clearly, she doesn't like what she sees but rather than direct her wrath against her subjects, she takes a more nuanced, helpful approach. She feels for her subjects even as the culture (including families, friends, peers, coaches, and media) around them pushes them forward. She wants them to succeed, but not at all costs. In fact, in the last chapter, she praises these starving girls for their strength, albeit a twisted kind of strength. By highlighting the ways girls cut each other down and size each other up, Martin brings some needed honesty to the ways women try to please each other, and how harsh we can be about our own kind.



There are so many brilliant insights here, I cannot document them all. Sometimes, I was just swept away by the passion of her prose; Martin doesn't let any element of flow or storytelling slide even as she works in statistics and original research. There's a continuity to the book that allows her to connect "Sex as a Cookie," her chapter on sexuality and body to "Spiritual Hunger." Also, she wisely looks beyond the minutiae of eating disorders and their technical classifications to a broader problem that still needs addressing, whether the medical profession chooses to do so or not. By linking the urge to be "perfect" with body issues, Martin also explores other ways women push themselves to the brink, whether at work or school or in sports.



Martin talks about "the ugliness underneath all of our prettiness," and it's precisely because so many of the behaviors and feelings she documents are so hidden that we may think we're better off than we really are. It's not only about the ones who wind up in clinics, who are visibly ill. As Martin shows, it's about the hours spent obsessing, the ways that dieting and desiring to be thin are so normalized that Martin even faced doubt that she had something worthy to explore in her book.



To prove how powerful her argument is, even while I was reading this book, tabbing up pages as if to memorize them, I was still berating myself in exactly the ways she describes. I went to get an omelette for breakfast at a deli, and ordered a Western one, not realizing it had ham. Only after I got it did I notice I could've had one with spinach or a garden omelette with vegetables. Part of me was horrified that I "chose wrong," and I made a stern mental note next time to order one of the veggie ones. In part, yes, I love spinach and would eat it at every meal if I could, but the other part of me was ready to pick out the ham lest I have something too fatty, too gross, too not me. And the guy taking my order, who doesn't know me at all, even says, "She's on a diet," when I order my food with plain dry wheat toast on the side. "But she doesn't need to be, she looks good the way she is," he tells the cook.



This is also the message of Martin's book but, and it's a huge but, one we can only learn for ourselves, from ourselves, for it to truly sink in. Martin's voice is so vital and necessary, close to her subject and close to her subjects in age. The vulnerability she shows, the tension between her strong feminist self and the voice(s) in her head, is real and relatable. The message here is not that Martin has all the answers, but rather that we need, individually and collectively, to look at "eating disorders," "body image," and "perfection" much more broadly. "What practices do *you* need to adopt in order to feel less weighed down by the burden of your own self-loathing?" Martin asks. For me, I am left with the task of trying to figure that out, something that may take a lifetime. This book is not only one of the best books I've ever read on eating disorders, it's one of the best books I've ever read and takes readers inside this "issue" without patronizing them. Martin knows there are no easy answers, but she doesn't let that stop her from fighting for the not-so-easy ones, and dreaming of and working toward a future not consumed by consumption.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We are not immune, June 9, 2007

By	Diane K. Danielson "CEO, DowntownWomensClub.com" (Cohasset, MA USA) - See all my reviews

I have to disagree with the reviewer who disliked the author's youthful perspective. While I'm an older Gen X'er, I understand that the world has changed since I was young and each generation rebels in different ways against the one before. I happen to prefer books about young women written by young women, as it gives insight to their generation that I could never have.

I also didn't think that the author blamed older feminists for their eating disorders, or claim that Generation Y is the first generation to truly suffer from issues with food. She acknowledges the rise of male eating disorders as well as in older women, but explicitly states that she was focusing on young women and all the factors that they process which may or may not be attributable to the fact that there are many more young women and girls starving themselves, than we (the older generations) know about. I personally found the feminism discussion interesting and hope to hear more from the author on this topic in the future.

I was particularly interested in the book because the group that seems to be most susceptible to eating disorders are the very same over-achievers that many of us are hoping will finally trample on the remains of the glass ceiling. But, how can they do that if they don't eat????

I actually liked the anecdotes about the author and her friends. I found these at times to be even more engaging than the focus group results. As noted, the author is a wonderful writer, which helps the book unfold as more of a story than a chronicle of a disease. And, despite the fact I can't relate to the world she grew up in, I saw many parallels and even recognized a few of my own unhealthy attitudes about food.

I urge anyone who has as daughter or a friend, or who personally may have either flirted with (or battled with) an eating disorder pick up this book.