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When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsession Paperback – December 30, 1996
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In this revolutionary new book, bestselling authors Carol Munter and Jane Hirschmann explore the myriad reasons why women cling to diets despite overwhelming evidence that diets don’t work. In fact, diets turn us into compulsive eaters obsessed with food and weight.
Munter and Hirschmann call this syndrome “Bad Body Fever” and demonstrate how “bad body thoughts” are clues to our emotional lives. They explore the difficulties women encounter replacing dieting with demand feeding. And finally, they teach us how to think about our problems rather than eat about them—so that food can resume its proper place in our lives.
“Many women will find in these pages exactly what they need: determined, optimistic, and resourceful coaches, pausing at the right moments to acknowledge the difficulty of change, then passionately urging them to press on.”—Susan C. Wooley, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Codirector, Eating Disorder Center University of Cincinnati Medical Center
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBallantine Books
- Publication dateDecember 30, 1996
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
- ISBN-10044991058X
- ISBN-13978-0449910580
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Review
“Many women will find in these pages exactly what they need: determined, optimistic, and resourceful coaches, pausing at the right moments to acknowledge the difficulty of change, then passionately urging them to press on.”—Susan C. Wooley, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Codirector, Eating Disorder Center University of Cincinnati Medical Center
From the Inside Flap
--Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.
Author of The Dance of Anger
In this revolutionary new book, bestselling authors Carol Munter and Jane Hirschmann explore the myriad reasons why women cling to diets despite overwhelming evidence that diets don't work. In fact, diets turn us into compulsive eaters who are obsessed with food and weight.
Munter and Hirschmann call this syndrome "Bad Body Fever" and demonstrate how "bad body thoughts" are clues to our emotional lives. They explore the difficulties women encounter replacing dieting with demand feeding. And finally, they teach us how to think about our problems rather than eat about them--so that food can resume its proper place in our lives.
"Many women will find in these pages exactly what they need: determined, optimistic, and resourcefu
From the Back Cover
--Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.
Author of The Dance of Anger
In this revolutionary new book, bestselling authors Carol Munter and Jane Hirschmann explore the myriad reasons why women cling to diets despite overwhelming evidence that diets don't work. In fact, diets turn us into compulsive eaters who are obsessed with food and weight.
Munter and Hirschmann call this syndrome "Bad Body Fever" and demonstrate how "bad body thoughts" are clues to our emotional lives. They explore the difficulties women encounter replacing dieting with demand feeding. And finally, they teach us how to think about our problems rather than eat about them--so that food can resume its proper place in our lives.
"Many women will find in these pages exactly what they need: determined, optimistic, and resourceful coaches, pausing at the right moments to acknowledge the difficulty of change, then passionately urging them to press on."
--Susan C. Wooley, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Codirector, Eating Disorders Center
University of Cincinnati Medical Center
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
WHEN WOMEN STOP HATING THEIR BODIES IS A COMPLETE HANDBOOK for women who want to free themselves from body hatred and from the dieting it spawns. More precisely, it is a guide to overcoming the formidable opposition a woman encounters when she resolves to tackle the problem of Bad Body Fever.
For a woman to say “No more diets!” “No more self-contempt!” “No more efforts to make myself over in his (or anyone else’s) image!” is nothing short of revolutionary. Her “No mores” are declarations of independence. They inevitably trigger reactions from the world around her, and unsettle her own equilibrium as well.
In Overcoming Overeating, we urged women to stop renovating their bodies and to move into them with love and respect, precisely as they are. We explained how compulsive eating, a problem that plagues millions of women, is the inevitable legacy of dieting and we prescribed “demand feeding” and abundance as the cure.
Many thousands of women have adopted our approach. They have stocked their homes with all kinds of food, including the most “forbidden,” and they have begun feeding themselves when, what, and how much their bodies need. They have joined existing Overcoming Overeating support groups, formed groups of their own, or simply found the strength within themselves to say “No more.” They have replaced self-reproach and body hatred with self-care and self-acceptance. They have abandoned their scales and bought clothes that they love—clothes that actually fit.
These women, whose names we have changed but whose stories we recount throughout this book, report extraordinary changes in themselves and in their lives. They no longer feel obsessed with food. They no longer hate their bodies. They no longer feel driven to eat when they are not hungry. And many of them have lost weight as a by-product of demand feeding.
These women also report that the struggle to free themselves from dieting and body hatred has been more difficult than they ever could have imagined. They had understood at the beginning that giving up dieting was a revolutionary act, but they had not understood the extent to which they had used dieting and body hatred to cope with the central issues of their lives.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that accepts body hatred and dieting as normal components of femininity. Women are encouraged to expend enormous amounts of energy shaping their bodies rather than their lives. When a woman declares an end to dieting and body hatred she is breaking rules, rules that have formed her sense of herself. She may feel exhilarated at her first taste of freedom, but as a dweller in this culture, she cannot help but worry about the consequences of her actions. Although Bad Body Fever causes a woman great pain, this pain has become an integral part of her entire emotional and psychological makeup; any attempt to heal it causes an inner reshuffling and understandable protest.
When women first hear that we recommend saying “No more” to diets, they smile with pleasure or giggle nervously. Very soon, however, they say, “I think you’re absolutely correct, but …” These “yes, buts” are expressions of resistance. They are a way women have of saying, “We want to free ourselves from body hatred and dieting, but who will we be without them?”
When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies is a response to your “yes, buts.” Each and every concern you have about abandoning body hatred and dieting deserves exploration. Each “yes, but” reveals something about how you have internalized the rules of the culture.
Although dieting and body hatred have made women miserable, they have also worked for us in a number of ways. For example, dieting and body hatred keep us in good standing as female citizens. We have done everything we have been told to do about eating and maintaining—or striving for—the “right” weight. When we think about saying “No more,” we worry about standing apart from the cultural norm. We may love the idea of freedom, but hesitate to jeopardize our “good girl” status.
We also worry about what we ourselves will think or feel if we are not directing so much energy toward condemning and fixing our bodies. Dieting and body hatred have distracted most of us from some of the central issues in our lives. Thinking about our problems rather than eating them into temporary oblivion is liberating but takes some getting used to. If instead of saying, “I feel fat,” we tell the truth about what is bothering us, what will happen?
Finally, we wonder what will replace all the rules about food and the negative attention we have focused on ourselves. If we no longer live with the belief that, once we are thin, everything in our lives will fall into place, then we must start attending to our own needs very differently. We have no role models to follow in this area. We have not seen many women who take care of themselves and their bodies with love and respect. Many of us may never have known even one woman who could look in the mirror and say, “I’m fine just the way I am”—and truly mean it.
When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies explores all of the problems women encounter as they try to free themselves from body hatred and dieting. We suggest that you read the book through first. We have included a detailed index so that you can refer back to the book each time you are troubled by a particular “yes, but.” Remember that giving up dieting and curing Bad Body Fever are revolutionary acts that require ongoing attention.
A NOTE TO MEN
We recognize that many men also suffer from the problem of body hatred and compulsive eating, and our approach works as well for men as it does for women. We have made a decision, however, to write about this problem from a woman’s perspective. We did this for two reasons.
First, women are still very much defined by how they look and what they eat. The culture we live in continues to afford men more latitude when it comes to appetite and body size.
Second, it is clear to us that our culture’s hatred of fat is inextricably linked to our cultural ambivalence about female strength and power. A woman’s body hatred is her internalized version of cultural misogyny. She tells herself each and every day that her body is wrong and that she takes up too much space in the world.
In a society in which fat is associated with being female, a fat man is considered less male. When a man chastises himself for his large belly, for example, he is actually berating himself for not living up to the cultural standard of manliness. Men, too, must challenge the rules of the culture by asking such questions as “Who says that my body is not okay just the way it is?”
Many men experience enormous pain around the issues of body size and compulsive eating. Although our book is written about women, we believe that men can work well with this approach, applying it to their specific needs.
THE PROCESS
When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies is divided into three parts: Reclaiming Your Body, Reclaiming Your Appetite, and Reclaiming Yourself.
In Part 1, Reclaiming Your Body, we describe Bad Body Fever, explore its unwanted resilience, and outline its cure. Much of this cure rests on your ability to challenge ideas you have taken for granted. For example, you must learn to ask “Who says that flat stomachs are the most attractive?” “Who says that we should all be thin?” We also explore our contention that a “bad body thought” is never about your body and teach you how to use your bad body thoughts as clues to your emotional life. In Part 2, Reclaiming Your Appetite, we review our proposal to replace dieting with demand feeding and explore the difficulties, both external and internal, that come into play as you attempt to become attuned to your body’s needs.
In Part 3, Reclaiming Yourself, we describe “mouth hunger,” or psychological hunger, and discuss the steps you must take in order to get to a point where you can think about your problems rather than eat about them. What qualities do you need to develop in order to sit with your feelings and work them through?
The voices in this book come from the women who have attended our workshops in New York City and across the country. We are certain, however, that they echo the thoughts and feelings of the many women who have been working with the Overcoming Overeating approach on their own. These voices represent countless courageous women who have given up dieting and are well on their way to curing their Bad Body Fever. They are an inspiration to us, and we trust that they will be an inspiration to you, our readers, as well. Each of us is waging a private struggle, but there is great comfort in knowing that others are engaged in that same effort.
We believe that the time has come for women to tackle Bad Body Fever—a pivotal, deep manifestation of the problem of inequality between men and women. We hope to convince you that the time has come for you, personally, to reclaim your appetite, your body, and yourself.
Product details
- Publisher : Ballantine Books; 1st edition (December 30, 1996)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 044991058X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0449910580
- Item Weight : 12.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #804,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #808 in Self-Help for Eating Disorders & Body Image Issues (Books)
- #2,432 in General Women's Health
- #3,722 in Weight Loss Diets (Books)
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About the authors

CAROL H. MUNTER is a Licensed Psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She is a member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. She started the first anti-dieting group for women in 1970 and currently is the codirector of the National Center for Overcoming Overeating. In addition to her individual practice, Carol holds monthly workshops for people who are using the Overcoming Overeating approach as well as twice yearly weekend advanced workshops in New York City and Ojai, California. She speaks and lectures widely on the topic of compulsive eating and does individual consultations as well as professional training.

JANE R. HIRSCHMANN, C.S.W., is a psychotherapist who for the past 36 years has specialized in the treatment of children and adults with compulsive eating problems. She co-authored OVERCOMING OVEREATING and WHEN WOMEN STOP HATING THEIR BODIES with Carol H. Munter. Formerly, she was on the Faculty of the New School for Social Research. Currently she is Co-director of the National Center for Overcoming Overeating. She has trained professionals concerned with the treatment of eating problems, lectured, toured extensively and appeared on national television and radio discussing her approach to this nation's eating dilemma. She lives in New York City and has raised three daughters with this method.
For more information, please visit the Overcoming Overeating web site at: overcomingovereating.com
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I went to see a therapist to see what my problem was that I couldn't find the discipline to lose weight. She shocked me by telling me right off that I didn't have a weight problem, I had a dieting problem. That people came in all different sizes and shapes and our culture was fat phobic. That our culture encouraged eating disorders by making women believe that they should all look like supermodels and the thinner the better. That everything would be better, if we could just be thinner. We were taught to hate our bodies.
I almost ran out of her office. How dare she say that it was okay to be less than thin and that food wasn't my enemy? Or that I could learn to listen to my body and eat what my body needed? That once I learned not to fear food and how to trust my body I would go to my 'natural' weight. Didn't she know that if I didn't control my every bite of food that I would blow up to the size of a blimp? But something she said snagged me into listening. I was sick of hating my body. She told me about this book and I decided to read it. Thank God she had a support group for fellow body haters, or else I probably would have died of fright.
Well, guess what. It's been years now since I had that first session and read the book. I eat what I want when I want now and I love my beautiful (now middle aged) less than thin body. It took a lot of bravery and hard work to learn how to give up my dieting, food obsessions, bad body thoughts and learn the real reasons for my body hatred. I don't think about food much anymore, unless I'm hungry. I know myself and my body very well now and I keep my home stocked up with things I know I love. I carry my food bag (full of things I might like) around with me when I'm going to be gone from the house for long enough for me to get hungry. I've discovered that I don't much like fast food, or even most food from any restaurant (except sushi occasionally), but if I get hungry enough I'll eat something that my body isn't going to appreciate, so I take care of myself by bringing along what I might want. Which happens to be what my body wants.
If you take a look at what I generally eat over a period of a week, a nutritionist would say I eat a healthy diet with how much fruits, vegetables, lean protein, whole grains and legumes I take in. I don't eat much fat, my body doesn't like it. But if you see what I eat day to day, you might say that I eat pretty weird. If I feel like a huge green salad for breakfast, that's what I have. Raisin Bran for dinner? No problem. For three days in a row, only broccoli with mozzarella melted on it, apples from my tree and not much else, because I didn't want anything else? Sure. Then a few days later eating from a quart of strawberry ice cream until I didn't want anymore? That works too. (I actually didn't wind up eating much ice cream, but it made me happy to eat out of the quart container and know that I could eat the whole thing if I really wanted to)
So, be a rebel and refuse to hate your body. Refuse to play the "My thighs are so fat" or "I just can't get the fat off my belly" or "I was bad and ate a donut last night" game that other women play all the time when they are together.
We have better things to invest our energy in than obsessing over our weight and food.
Let me give some background of where I am because I think this places the book in the proper scope of understanding. I am recovered from Binge eating disorder, which I have had for about 20 years. I see a therapist about once a month for a good venting session as well as perspective and I'm also on an antidepressant. EDs are never about food. Eds are the result of pushing down your problems by stuffing yourself with food (or not eating it, in the case of Anorexia). This way, you can superficially stay in "food mode".. you can blame the food, you can go on a diet, you can obsess about scales, points, calories, carbs and "being healthy" INSTEAD of dealing with the problems that you have no coping skills to deal with.
"Overcoming Overeating" and "When Women Stop hating their Bodies" are companion books that help set the stage that American society and their obsessions with diets are not only detrimental to women, through pushing women to diet to conform to society's definition of beautiful (for now, a man body with huge breast implants), American society pushes women into eating disorders.
Bad body thoughts are a companion to food obsession that help you avoid your problems. Feeling "FAT" is an ED sufferer's way of trying to distract themselves from what is really going on with themselves by obsessing about their bodies.
How do you escape bad body thoughts? You become your own caretaker.
WWSHTB continues the plan given in "Overcoming Overeating" and takes you through not only unraveling your thought processes, which are twisted around food, but also shows you HOW to become your own caretaker by feeding yourself when hungry, carrying around food in case you get hungry (whichever food YOU crave) and how to deal with "mouth hunger" (which is eating when food calls to you).
In addition to showing you how to initially become your own care taker by FEEDING yourself, "WWSHTB" picks up where 'Overcoming Overeating" left off, which is taking you past the plan to overcome bingeing and mouth hunger, by showing you how to face your problems by sitting with them and looking at the problem from a different perspective. At some point, when food is no longer a friend or a lover, you'll still need to address residual issues which will occassionally cause you to fall into your old coping skill of eating. They show you how to do that!
This book has many gems in it. My favorite line is on pg. 203: "You do not need food when you have yourself." Wow! It is so simple, yet so profound. In other words, when you become your own caretaker by feeding yourself not only on demand, but also when you have mouth hunger, and when you give yourself unconditional permission to eat whatever it is you crave, and when you take all emotions away from food so that a peach is the emotional equivalent to fudge, THEN you can start to unravel the twisted logic that placed you in the path of an eating disorder. And when you develop new coping skills so that bingeing and mouth hunger go away, THEN you will have developed a new sense of self, a self that will always be there for you and where it wont' even occur to you to eat for reasons other than hunger.
And it is through that process, one which our diet-obsessed culture cannot possibly understand, you will have trumped society's irrational standards because you won't buy into them any more!
I would like to personally thank the authors for this book: I *get* it now! :)
If you have been on the diet roller coaster, losing then gaining then losing then regaining and you have had enough and want a REAL solution then this book is for you.
I won't even try to explain it's contents because I think EVERY woman should have this in her library. Finally I am free to live my life while my body normalises itself. I don't have to plan meals, count calories, deprive myself of the foods I love or spend endless hours on mindless exercise machines. Who would have thought that the answer to my problems was to STOP dieting and that I would naturally return to my healthy ideal weight not to mention the other health complications I was having that have cleared up as well.
With so many cases of overeating, binge dieting, and unhealthy eating disorders, this book should be made compulsory reading for ALL high school age girls too. Enjoy and Free yourself for ever :)
Top reviews from other countries
I have read a lot of books about stopping dieting and learning to accept yourself but none have been as comprehensive, nurturing and useful as this one. I hate the title (its not a book you can easily read in pubic without a cover!) but the book is a real gem. It covers lots of different issues that people face and gives useful tips on how to overcome them. Some will be more relevant to you than others. I previously read "overcoming overeating" by the same authors which was good (4 Stars) but I'd rate this one at 5 stars.






