Wanting to Be Her: Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You [Paperback]

Michelle Graham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2005

How do you feel when you look at a magazine cover? Do you ever look at the models and wish you looked like them? Most women have had that experience. When you go to the health club, you notice how buff the woman to the left is and how skinny the woman to the right is. And when you go out, you see the guys flocking to talk with certain women and wonder if your looks stack up to theirs. When you get dressed in the morning, do you worry about whether your jeans are flattering? Do you think about who you are going to see when you decide how to do your hair? When you eat a meal, do you think about those magazine models again? Most women do. And they are buying into a lie. In this book Michelle Graham reveals how easy it is to fall into the trap of viewing your body through the lens of culture rather than through the eyes of God. She helps you understand that these are not the things that God wants you to dwell on. And these are not the true qualities of beauty. As you read this book you will discover that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes and colors, and it cannot be airbrushed or faked. In these pages you will discover the true secrets of a positive body image.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Though the subject of beauty and body and ethnicity and weight might leave a woman feeling self-conscious, after reading this book, I felt unusually relaxed. My longing for God was reawakened, and my love for other women renewed." (Dr. Sarah Sumner, Professor of Ministry and theology at Azusa Pacific University and author of Men and Women in the Church )

From the Author

IVP: What made you realize it was time for you to write a book like Wanting to Be Her?

Michelle Graham: Over the last several years I had been working in campus ministry with college students and, more specifically, on a conference dealing with the topic of sexuality. I knew that in order to speak relevantly to the issues our women are struggling with, we needed to address the issue of body image. The pressures that young women face today to look a certain way are astronomical. . . Body image has become as much a part of our daily lives as the air we breathe. But rarely do we stop to consider that it may have something to do with our relationship with God. I knew we needed to help our students wrestle through it from a biblical point of view. As I searched for helpful resources, I had a difficult time finding anything that was written with my students in mind. I realized that there were life-changing truths that not just my college students but women of all ages needed to hear. IVP: Why do you think there is such an obsession with appearance today?

Graham: The messages we are bombarded with tell us that our value, our acceptance, even our success in life is dependent upon how closely we match the ideals of beauty. The pretty ones get the good jobs, the cute guys, the popular friends, the doors of opportunity, basically the happily ever after. Something in us craves acceptance, attention and love, and we're convinced that the way to receive it is through our appearance.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 169 pages
• Publisher: IVP Books (March 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830832661
• ISBN-13: 978-0830832668
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #356,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Raised in the Midwest, Michelle attended the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and received a BA in Speech Communication with a minor in Spanish. After graduating she spent the following year in San Juan, Puerto Rico serving in the radio stations WBMJ and WIVV with Calvary Evangelistic Mission.

In 1994 she returned to the States, married her husband Byron, and began working with college students through the ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. She and her husband have spent the last 16 years reaching students at Northern Illinois University and all over Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana. In addition to being the mother of four kids, ages 3-10, she is the author of Wanting to Be Her, and travels the country as a popular speaker.

Things she loves: coffee, traveling the world, chocolate, big dogs, quoting movies, reading edgy books, running, hearing from God, speaking Spanish, hugs from her kids, laughing so hard you cry.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Advice from a Wise Older Sister, June 3, 2005

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wanting to Be Her: Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You (Paperback)

How many of us have had a conversation with God similar to this one?

"God: Do you know that I made everything you see?

Michelle: Oh yes, Lord, and what a great job you did! Down to every last detail --- bravo! Standing ovation, even.

God: Do you know that I made you too?

Michelle: Right. Good job. The human body is pretty amazing. And so is mine, well, all except for my hair. It's a little limp, and the color needs some livening up. But other than that --- and my thighs don't look exactly swimsuit-ready. And now that I think about it, you could have improved slightly on my chest. It's not just like everyone else's. Oh, and my skin's too freckly, and there's the matter of my height, and my hips, and my eyes. Actually, God, I have a short performance review I've typed up for you that might help in your future people making. I mean, really great job in general with humanity. But my particular body could have used a better design."

The Michelle half of the equation here is Michelle Graham and the conversation can be found in her book, WANTING TO BE HER: Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You. If you can relate to her insecurities about her physical appearance --- and really, what woman can't? --- then you'll appreciate this biblically informed look at the basis of a healthy body image.

Few would argue with Graham's proposition that we're more likely to view our bodies through culture-informed glasses rather than through the eyes of God. And the facts of which the culture is informing us --- via airbrushed magazine covers and television shows like "The Swan" and "Extreme Makeover" --- often lead us to a pervasive sense that we fall short in the looks department. Why else would we Americans spend $20 billion on cosmetics, $2 billion on hair products, $74 billion on diet foods, and $7.4 million on cosmetic surgery each year? We're obsessed with the way we look.

But it would be too easy just to blame the media. "Though a sea of media-promoted beauty surrounds us, it is actually those closest to us who do the most damage," writes Graham. "We pass on our body obsessions to each other like a nasty strain of influenza. New research shows that feelings about body image start very early, long before the media play a significant role in girls' lives. A survey at Kenyon College discovered that elementary school girls who were more concerned about body shape and weight were more likely to have mothers who made weight-related comments. The study quoted Ira Sacker (coauthor of DYING TO BE THIN): 'Some of my patients, who are just out of nursery school, tell me that they're fat. Turns out that their moms are saying the same things about themselves.'"

Graham combats these negative messages with nuanced commentary from Christian thinkers like Lillian Calles Barger and, more importantly, with Scripture. She advocates a balanced approach to our bodies --- neither denying nor elevating their importance --- that's steeped in the stories in the Bible. If that sounds stodgy, or predictable, it's not. There are no sermons here. Just stories of women, including Graham, who have lived and learned a thing or two about what it means to look in the mirror. Reading this book is like getting good advice from a wise, older sister --- you're a bit surprised you're still listening, but you don't want her to stop talking.

--- Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprised by the relevance, August 30, 2005

By 

M. Welsh "lilred" (Illinois) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wanting to Be Her: Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You (Paperback)

I have read some books that talk about body image and self-esteem, etc. without really getting much out of them, and I didn't think that I really had any real problems in this area. However, I read this book anyway and loved it. Graham is so real and isn't afraid to put everything out there. It left me feeling encouraged and beautiful. I would recommend it for any female whether she be a teenager or an elderly woman.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have book for women who struggle with poor body-image, December 6, 2005

By 

N. Dixon (Queens, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wanting to Be Her: Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You (Paperback)

This book really gets to the core of what body-image issues are all about: caring more about what other people say makes us beautiful as women, than what God says. I am a person who highlights and underlines and makes other markings in books as I read them, and there is hardly a page in "Wanting to Be Her" where I did not mark something that resonated with me. My hope is to start a women's discussion group about body image, using this book as a guide. I believe strongly, as the author does, that it is important that we wrestle with these issues in community, as we continue the journey to freedom from societal beauty standards. Thank you Michelle Graham for your honesty and vulnerability, and for calling a spade a spade. For another wonderful book about body-image, I highly recommend "Who Calls Me Beautiful? Finding Our True Image in the Mirror of God" by Regina Franklin.