Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body

Customer Reviews

to say the least ....

2008-10-03
the writer and this book are dillusional. This book would appeal to anyone who wants to live in their own little world. If you read - get it from a library.

Deluded and dangerous

2008-08-22
This book is not only false and misleading on so many levels, it's actually dangerous. Books like these now directly influence public policy and legislation and when the victims will not only be middle-aged men paying for the patriarchal sins of their forefathers, but also children and young people, then its time to read with a little more critical sobriety.

No matter the exaggerated number, but very real tragedy, of young women suffering from eating disorders - they have complex psychological causes. What is more, obesity clearly represents a far greater and urgent health problem facing our young people. Many American tourists come to my city and I have to say that I have never spotted an anorexic amongst them. I would, however, say that around half the young American females I see are unhealthily obese - by any reasonable definition. It therefore strikes me as utterly obscene for an American author to pretend that anorexia (a terrible psychological illness though it is) is in any way comparable to the threat posed by obesity to the health and well being of our young people today.

And yet, the author has the audacity to claim (with no sound argument) that obesity itself is simply another eating disorder resulting from the evil objectification of the female body by men. Does obesity really have nothing to do with the junk food culture or the failure of parents to teach children responsible eating habits? Or, indeed, that so many females now DON'T care about living up to traditional ideas of femininity and grace? If we ban images of slim women (as the French have recently done) would we not simply be guilty of encouraging obesity and therefore of abusing our children...even if middle-aged feminists no longer feel jealous rage whenever they watch a bikini model in a beer commercial or threatened by a slim teenage girl turning the heads of their husbands (they will all be over 18 stone soon before they even hit puberty).

Actually, it would be far better for the physical health of young Americans (if not the psychological health of middle-aged feminists) for young girls to be given compulsory beauty classes at college. Wanting too much to be attractive to the opposite sex appears to be the last thing on the average American girl's mind.

Of course, no mention is made of the millions of young American males who are now force feeding themselves daily with steroids in order to be sexually acceptable to the opposite sex, knowing that they will likely be dead at 40 through liver disease or some other consequence.

I wonder what does the author really want men to do and what would be the consequences for us if we did it? Are we really to feel guilt and self-hatred at finding slim females attractive? Should we start cutting ourselves in shame and guilt every time an image of Maria Shaparova enters our heads instead of a 20 stone Russian shot putter (or feminist)?

And why no public discussion of the grotesque female sexual fetishisation of black urban gangsta culture? Something that increasingly turns our young men into violent brutes willing to kill each other in a warped and tragic desire to seek validation from their female peers?

Blessed that this book exists

2008-07-15
First, let me qualify myself: I am an LCSW working in a clinical hospital setting conducting groups for adults in partial hospitalization mental health treatment. My primary treatment specialties are domestic and sexual violence, PTSD, self-injury, and ED. I want to directly, assertively strike against the review that calls this book "deluded" and "dangerous." It is neither.

Courtney Martin's writing is marinated in wisdom, and her insights are eloquent. I have read stacks and stacks of books on body image, eating disorders, perfectionism, and feminist theory, and this book is THE TOP of my list of all of them. Martin nails it. She is wise enough to see body image as more than a pounds-and-ounces issue; more than skinny-and-fat bipolar beauty; more than "blame it on magazines" superficialities. No, Martin takes a remarkably broad, and well-informed, view: eating disorders are one of the products of a matrix of cultural, familial, spiritual, and physical influences on young women's development.

Martin doesn't present herself as an expert, and she wisely defers to doctors and clinicians for treatment information. What she does present skillfully is her insight into how women are conditioned--and then condition one another--to translate impossible concepts of "perfect" into impossible concepts of "body." By "perfect," Martin doesn't settle for the narrow definition of "perfect beauty." She posits that "perfection" in this context is a larger and more oppressive ideology of performance, achievement, being seen and loved, finding existential meaning, avoiding rejection, and transferring internal crisis into external body recomposition. This isn't some vague, tenuous connection she's making, either; Courtney hits the bulls-eye over and over until the reader has a profoundly expanded understanding of women, bodies, and culture.

I kept waiting for some flaw to appear: "surely she'll treat men in a two-dimensional stereotyped way!" Nope; she approach the topic of men's role (as fathers and partners) very maturely. "Surely she'll elaborate on the problem and skimp on solutions!" Nope; she ends her book with a manifesto of hope--a "new story", she calls it. "Surely she'll employ an exaggerated feminist paradigm to ED, so that the issue fits her beliefs." Nope; she is heartbreakingly honest about her own struggles, and the importance--and shortcomings--of feminism in exploring them.

Courtney, if you read this, THANK YOU. As a male reader, I am so blessed to have been given these insights. I hope you will continue to write, and I have a personal list of topics I wish a writer with your skill and word power would take on for us. It's a shame this book isn't a widespread classic; it's my new "Revising [sic] Ophelia."

fantastic book

2008-05-15
This is an amazing book. Written from the heart of every college girl, a must-read for girls in high school and beyond, or anyone trying to understand the world of girls today. Fantastic author, passionate about her work, comes across as very authentic.

A Perfect 10.

2008-03-03
This could quite possibly be the greatest book on body image I've ever read. Courtney has a way of writing that informs, intrigues, and most of all, causes us to dig deeper within ourselves to find what we believe to be true for our own bodies and what society has influenced upon them. As a "feminist" woman in my mid-twenties, who has realized the grotesque influence the media, social habits, and most of all, our own "starving daughter" can have on our personal psyche, Martin's book was extremely refreshing. It makes us realize that we are not alone and that it is time to break the cycle. Bottom line: I laughed out loud, I cried, and enjoyed every page.

Faciliated my recovery - the only thing that has EVER helped me!

2008-02-24
"Why does every one of my friends have an eating disorder, or, at the very least, a screwed-up approach to food and fitness?" writes journalist Courtney E. Martin. The new world culture of eating disorders and food and body issues affects virtually all -- not just a rare few -- of today's young women. They are your sisters, friends, and colleagues -- a generation told that they could "be anything," who instead heard that they had to "be everything." Driven by a relentless quest for perfection, they are on the verge of a breakdown, exhausted from overexercising, binging, purging, and depriving themselves to attain an unhealthy ideal.

An emerging new talent, Courtney E. Martin is the voice of a young generation so obsessed with being thin that their consciousness is always focused inward, to the detriment of their careers and relationships. Health and wellness, joy and love have come to seem ancillary compared to the desire for a perfect body. Even though eating disorders first became generally known about twenty-five years ago, they have burgeoned, worsened, become more difficult to treat and more fatal (50 percent of anorexics who do not respond to treatment die within ten years). Consider these statistics:

Ten million Americans suffer from eating disorders.
Seventy million people worldwide suffer from eating disorders.
More than half of American women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five would pre fer to be run over by a truck or die young than be fat.
More than two-thirds would rather be mean or stupid.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychological disease.

In Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, Martin offers original research from the front lines of the eating disorders battlefield. Drawn from more than a hundred interviews with sufferers, psychologists, nutritionists, sociocultural experts, and others, her exposé reveals a new generation of "perfect girls" who are obsessive-compulsive, overachieving, and self-sacrificing in multiple -- and often dangerous -- new ways. Young women are "told over and over again," Martin notes, "that we can be anything. But in those affirmations, assurances, and assertions was a concealed pressure, an unintended message: You are special. You are worth something. But you need to be perfect to live up to that specialness."

With its vivid and often heartbreaking personal stories, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters has the power both to shock and to educate. It is a true call to action and cannot be missed.

The book we have all been waiting for! 2007-12-27
Immediately after I finished this book, I bought a bunch more copies to give to all of my friends. THAT is how good it is.

As a 22 year old female who falls into the category of an overachieving and ambitious perfectionist, I found that this was the first book I've come across written by someone who has the same questions as me and who was actually able to answer to them. While reading this book I was struck over and over again by how many times I came across something which my friends and I do/think/wonder/feel. This is a book which young women today can really connect with. Even if you've never had an eating disorder, you will definitely recognize the patterns of perfectionism and unhealthy relationships to food and fitness which have probably shaped your life.

If you've ever wondered why you feel compelled to lose weight, even when you know you're perfectly healthy and beautiful, this book is for you. If you're sick of watching all your friends and your sisters struggling with eating disorders or just general disordered eating, this book is for you. If you're a guy and you think your girlfriend is crazy because she obsesses over everything she puts in her mouth and berates herself for skipping the gym, this is for you. If you're a smart, strong young woman who knows that blaming the media and the fashion & beauty industry for our body images issues is too simplistic an explanation, this book is for you.

Please please please read this book and share it with all your friends. It's time we all started talking about these pressures and changing our lives for the better instead of suffering alone in silence.

Tapping into the hunger for life 2007-11-25
Despite the author being in her mid-twenties---no, *because* the author is in her mid-twenties---this book provides a hard-hitting and authentic look at the struggles of a generation of girls who have been encouraged by others to be anything, yet have pushed themselves to be everything. Filled with the wisdom (and language) that can only be known and passed on by one who has grown up in a culture bursting with eating disorders and food/fitness fanaticism, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters adds valuable insights and approaches to the relentless pursuit of perfection.

Courtney's insights such as "We hunger because we are hungry for the world. We starve because we are overwhelmed by this hunger" are nicely complemented with her (perhaps idealistic yet) keen advice of: "We must reckon with our inner perfect girls, harness their ambition and optimism, and throw out the self-criticism. Teach them how to be quiet and listen, to be comfortable with slowness, to savor a victory. Teach them about the strength and knowledge born of failure, pleasure for pleasure's sake, the inevitability and beauty of imperfection."

Clearly, the drive for perfection---fueled by unhealthy obsessions, impossible standards, and extreme expectations---taunts the current generation of teenagers and young women. Ideally, this drive would be derailed with an awareness that the real sources of hunger and healing go well beyond the realms of food and fitness. But, realistically, we can hope that the author's plea for young women to "stop obsessing about your body [and start] listening to it more" will help some find balance between the drive for unattainable perfection and the journey towards self-acceptance.

Absolutely Horrible Book 2007-11-12
Ms. Martin should ask for a refund from whatever institute of high learner that she attended. This is basically a book that encourages parents to teach their children to have sex at the age of 12 years old. What a stupid woman!

Interesting 2007-10-07
While the writing and subject are interesting and the author obviously earnest in her intent, I don't feel she seperates well the different factors that create the environment for the development of an ED. While media, family, images, etc. plays a huge role, it is so much larger than that. While feminism is one stance to focus on, I would have liked to see more acknowledgement to the fact that this disease is extremely complex and rarely to individuals specifically set out to develop these disorders.