Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today's Weight-Obsessed World [Paperback]

Frances M. Berg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

Designed to challenge America’s growing obsession with thinness, this book reveals the profound mental and physical effects on women struggling with their weight. It examines the way weight obsession consumes women, shatters lives, and even kills. Documented are four major weight and eating problems—eating disorders, dysfunctional eating, size prejudice, and overweight. A warning call to health professionals, families, and leaders, it gives clear guidelines on how women can bring about meaningful change in their lives to improve health and well-being.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"It's health at any size!" is this book's emphatic message to American women. Berg, a licensed nutritionist, the founder/editor of Healthy Weight Journal, and the author of several books, including Afraid To Eat: Children and Teens in Weight Crisis, argues that the media and society cause women to obsess over the numbers on the bathroom scale and subsequently abuse their bodies and minds. In the first part of her book, she covers eating disorders, dysfunctional eating, and rising weights and size prejudice. True stories of women fatally dieting to fit into smaller wedding gowns and avoiding medical checkups so that they won't have to be weighed or ridiculed by their doctors help illustrate the problems. Berg devotes the second half of her book to suggestions on how women can be healthy no matter what their weight. Throughout, she backs up her observations with research and statistics. More than just your typical "how-to-love-your-weight" book, this guide explains why women are so obsessed with their weight and calls for a change in the way overweight women are treated by society. Recommended for libraries serving consumers, educators, and health professionals.
-Samantha J. Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Should be required reading for all students in medical, nursing or dietetics. Perhaps then they would not be so flippant in recommending weight loss. -- Joanne Ikeda, MA, RD, California Extension Nutrition Specialist

All public libraries will want at least two copies, one for the reference desk and a second for circulating. -- Public Library Quarterly

Highly recommended to all readers. . . . The most comprehensive guide dealing with weight-obsession. Its scope, intensity and integrity is simply unparalleled. -- CHOICE, American Library Association

The guru of the nondieting movement has struck again. Frances Berg scores a direct hit . . . Belongs on every dietitian's bookshelf. -- Today's Dietitian

This book speaks the painful truth all women need to hear so that we can come home to our bodies. -- Jeanine Cogan, PhD, Research Psychologist, Washington, D.C. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Healthy Weight Publishing Network (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0918532620
• ISBN-13: 978-0918532626
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #757,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for diehard dieters, September 28, 2006

By 

Charlotte "A Healthy Human" (Hacienda Heights, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today's Weight-Obsessed World (Paperback)

This book makes it very clear why dieting is self-defeating. Learning to eat healthy from all the delicious foods on the food pyramid will keep you busy so you won't have time to concern yourself with obsessing about food. Those obsessions will disappear when learning about new facts and discoveries about the needs of your body.

As I was reading the book, Women Afraid to Eat, by Francie Berg, I was inspired to experiment. I was surprised to learn that there are delightful flavors of the usual healthy foods that I had never experienced before. Now I buy fresh vegetables and fruits and eat them up while they are still fresh. I experienced an new slant to my life and find it refreshing. I'm losing weight without thinking about food. I just accept myself and feel so much better about myself. I just eat healthy and keep losing pounds, gradually, gradually, gradually, without even thinking about it.

I save the money that I might have spent on weight-loss programs that are quite expensive. None of those weight-loss pills, or foods go into my body...just healthy unprocessed foods and I keep losing weight! Of course I read labels on foods I buy at the market and if it has too much fat, salt or sugar, it stays right on the shelf. I don't touch it. Eating healthy, I've discovered, is the way to go.

Reading Berg's book, Women Afraid to Eat, has changed my life.

....A Happy Reader

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to break free of weight obsession, March 12, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today's Weight-Obsessed World (Paperback)

Two important guides to weight and eating are presented inthese excellent surveys by Frances Berg. Children And Teens Afraid ToEat examines six major eating and weight problems, from undernutrition of teens to eating disorders and obesity, blending statistics with a survey of underlying social causes and the actions which need to be taken to help teens. Women Afraid To Eat documents the physical and psychological harm done by social images which focus on the detriments of eating. From fad diets to weight prejudices, this tells women how to break free of weight obsession.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really good, November 17, 2010

By 

MaryAnn Bacon (MEDFORD, NJ, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today's Weight-Obsessed World (Paperback)

Fantastic review of the diet crazy nation- really a book to nurture real women, using real statistics, It pulls aside the curtain of bull surrounding weight issues for women in America- I recommend it all the time.