How Weight Obsession Is Screwing Up Our Girls
and What We Can Do to Help Them Thrive Despite It
Dr. Robyn Silverman contacted me at least nine years ago while I was at Mode Magazine and we’ve been talking ever since about the book that just launched October 1st. I am proud to have been quoted in it and to have done many interviews with her and to have gotten to know her personally. In fact, the book has been such a success in the past few weeks that we have been asked to create programs to help address the very issues that are affecting our young girls who are bombarded by body messaging that tells them they are not okay.
A 2009 poll revealed that an alarming 95 percent of girls ages sixteen to twenty-one want to change their bodies in some way. Another recent study, conducted by the Children’s National Medical Center and the University of Miami, found that what influences a girl’s weight-control behavior is her own definition of “normal” body weight and her perception of what others consider “normal.” The contemporary obsession with weight, coupled with the recent media onslaught about obesity, has resulted in an unhealthy attitude that is sending our girls the wrong message, says leading child and adolescent development specialist Robyn J.A. Silverman, Ph.D. The result: low self-esteem, eating disorders, extreme dieting, over-exercising, unnecessary plastic surgery, and lifelong fixation on weight and body image.
In 2003, Dr. Silverman created the Sassy Sisterhood Girls Circle for girls ages nine to fourteen, an ongoing workshop/coaching series that explores issues affecting body esteem and self-image. At the same time, she began her groundbreaking research at Tufts University, giving voice to an uncharted group: working and aspiring plus-size models. She sought to discover why these women, who had beat the odds in a “skinny
world,” not only embraced their larger body-types, but perceived themselves as successes, willing to put themselves on the front lines in a society that values thinness. What could these women teach young girls—indeed, all women—about being proud of their bodies?
A direct outgrowth of Dr. Silverman’s pioneering work, GOOD GIRLS DON’T GET FAT: How Weight Obsession Is Screwing Up Our Girls and What We Can Do to Help Them Thrive Despite It (Harlequin; October 2010; $16.95 U.S./$19.95 CAN.) is both a wake-up call and invaluable prescriptive guide for parents, families, teachers, counselors and anyone who works with or cares about our young women. “As girls—and, later, women—we’re informally schooled to be critical of ourselves in order to fit in; we’re taught to bring ourselves down in order to cheer someone else up,” writes Dr. Silverman. “That’s part of the way girls help each other reestablish their ‘goodness of fit’—their ability to interlock like puzzle pieces, to the best of their efforts, and claim their place within their immediate group or community. This often means scripting out a predictable exchange that denigrates the self while affirming the other—a pattern that is then picked up by the other girls as if it were a baton.” Girls can become their own worst enemies, and their crumbling self-esteem is reinforced by the messages they routinely receive from their parents, siblings, friends, teachers and others.
Silverman has structured GOOD GIRLS DON’T GET FAT from the “inside out,” unveiling the ugly things going on in young women’s heads and then following the ripple effect those ugly things have on the people around them. Layer by layer, she examines how mothers, fathers, family members, teachers and peers must grasp the opportunity to address the overarching issues through their own reactions and approach. The book explores how so often we unwittingly contribute to girls’ low body esteem because of our own preconceptions and hang-ups. Many chapters end with a Body Image Quotient (BIQ), a brief questionnaire that elicits frank responses and helps readers determine how their daughter is doing, as well as how they are doing helping her on the journey to becoming her best and being happy with who she is.
The final chapter, “Goodbye, Good Girl. Hello Asset Girl!” is a resounding battle cry for finding health and happiness at any size. Throughout the book, Dr. Silverman includes the stories of actual girls who have struggled with issues of body esteem. She also includes a trove of asset-building resources, clubs, curricula and websites that provide ways to help girls find their way amid the obstacles and mixed signals of our weight-obsessed culture.
“I wish I could say there’s a secret formula to raising a girl with a healthy attitude,” Dr. Silverman concluded. “I can’t. But what I can say is that those girls who see themselves in terms of strengths, who feel supported by those they love and have come to a place of acceptance about their bodies, are the ones who flourish. Their SPARK takes on a life of its own.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Robyn Silverman is a leading Child and Adolescent Specialist with a focus on character education and body/self esteem development during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. She earned her Ph.D. from Tuft University’s Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development. Dr. Silverman has been a featured expert on The Tyra Show, NBC’s LXTV, Fox News, NPR, The Santita Jackson Show, Nightline, MSNBC, CBS Morning Show Annex, and Dr. Drew Pinsky’s radio show, and has been featured in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Parenting, Prevention, Marie Claire, InTouch Weekly, Women First, Self, and on hundreds of popular websites, including Aol.com and U.S. News and World Report. Creator of the Sassy Sisterhood Girls Circle, she has also been the body image and teen development expert for 18 books, including 113 Things to Do By 13. Dr. Silverman serves as an Advisory Board Member for Shaping Youth, a consortium of media and marketing professionals concerned about harmful messages to children. For more information, please visit www.GoodGirlsDontGetFat.com.
