Hunger Pains The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness

We live in an appearance-obsessed culture. Fashion ads, magazine covers, TV shows, and movies idealize a body type that is impossible for most real women to achieve. In this comforting, liberating book, Dr. Mary Pipher, bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia, offers advice, counsel, and practical solutions for understanding our needs, our fears, and our many hungers. She shows us how we can at last learn to live at peace with the natural differences in our bodies and appetites. 
The rates of anorexia, bulimia, and depression for women are the highest they have ever been, and begin at ever younger ages. Dr. Pipher reveals how society encourages our misery and prevents us from accepting our looks. Indeed, for many women the humiliation of overweight or obesity is a wound that never heals. Dr. Pipher reminds us that accepting our bodies the way they are is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

Mary Pipher, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and author of Hunger Pains: The American Woman’s Tragic Quest for Thinness, The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families, Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, and The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town. Dr. Pipher’s area of expertise is how culture affects people’s mental health. For her work, she was awarded the American Psychological Association’s Presidential Citation in 1998. She speaks across the country to families, mental health professionals, and educators. She has appeared on Today, 20/20, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio’s Fresh Air. She lives in Nebraska with her husband, Jim.