BMI in Schools: Educating Children in Self-Loathing, Not Health

Image ©Nazareth College

By Sayantani DasGupta I don’t know how, as a pediatrician, mother, and body politics activist, I missed it all this time. But, I recently learned something that rocked my world in an avalanche of outrage and horror. I was preparing to give a talk at The Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, … [Read more...]

Regenerating Hymens and Bloody Sheets: What’s Really Going On Down There?

HymenFilm

By Therese Shechter A few months ago at a dinner party, the topic of hymens came up (don’t all your dinner parties go like this?) and how on rare occasions the membrane is completely sealed and has to be surgically opened. One of the men there wondered how the condition could go unnoticed, seeing as it would block the … [Read more...]

Obama’s Plan B Move Gets an F From Us

Plan-B

By Ashley-Michelle Papon Once again, stunned women found themselves to be the sacrificial lambs to the slaughter after the shocking decision by the Obama administration to restrict the sale of the morning-after pill to minors in the U.S., overriding an earlier recommendation by the Food and Drug Administration to increase access. … [Read more...]

Dare to Resolve to Ditch Dieting

Official logo for the Ditching Dieting campaign.

By Sharon Haywood Aside from bikini season, late December and early January is the other time of year that we’re especially susceptible to feeling bad about our bodies. Special thanks to the media and the diet industry for ensuring we do by reminding us that we overindulged during the end-of-year festivities and we must … [Read more...]

How Diets Decrease Your Self-Esteem and Not Your Size!

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Dieting and Body Image: The Facts By Maddie Ruud from hubpages.com Raking in $40 billion every year, the diet industry is one of the most profitable areas of our economy today. One out of three women and one out of four men are on a diet at any given time. With these statistics, you well may wonder why the so-called … [Read more...]

Expressing Disorder: Art Therapies for Eating Disorder Treatment

A still image from "Expressing Disorder"

By Valerie Kusler Several years ago, David Alvarado learned that the woman he had recently fallen in love with was severely bulimic. Never having been exposed to eating disorders (EDs) at a personal level, questions swirled around his head, but answers were elusive. The more David read about EDs, the more he wanted to understand … [Read more...]

Michelle Obama’s “My Plate” Leaves Us Hungry

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by Ophira Edut Lights, camera, action! It's...oh. It's my middle school pamphlet on the five basic food groups, right? Wait, no, it's my Weight Watchers tracker where I can enter what I just ate into an online widget. Cool! What? It's not that? Oh, oh, now I see: it's the First Lady's big healthy eating initiative, … [Read more...]

Body of Lies: Debunking the BMI

antique scale

By Ashley-Michelle Papon It’s that time of year again: swimming pools are opening, students are jogging, and if you’re a mom, you’re probably getting fat. According to a new study released in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, young mothers are more likely to make poor dietary … [Read more...]

EDNOS: The Eating Disorder You Haven’t Heard Of

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By Michelle Cantrell of VenusVision.com When I received the diagnosis of Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) two years ago, I had mixed reactions. On the one hand, the label didn’t seem to fit. Me? With an eating disorder? I wasn’t underweight, and in fact was technically on the edge of being “overweight.” I … [Read more...]

Body Image: Are We Wired for Distortion?

Picasso_Girl in the Mirror

By Ashley Solomon of Nourishing the Soul Do you ever wonder why you can’t seem to move past those disparaging thoughts about your hips or belly? Your weight may be less to blame than your brain, according to recent research on body image. While body image admittedly has many sources of influence (such as parental commentary … [Read more...]