Am I Thin Enough Yet?: The Cult of Thinness and the ... (ISBN 0195117913)

Excellent for beginners, not so useful for researchers:
"Am I thin Enough Yet?" is a very well-written book, and I strongly recommend it to women (and men!) living in the Western World, where thinness is what defines a woman's self-worth. The author's interviews with college women are fascinating and useful in terms of showing how common subclinical levels of eating disorders are in this particular population. But if you are a therapist/scholar (e.g., eating disorders is my primary research area), or have read books on sociocultural aspects of eating disorders, this book will not add much to your knowledge.

Let's all whine "suppression" of women:
Hesser-Biber uses the subject of women and their body image to give her opinion on how "evil" capitalism is. The first four or so chapters are all about how the horrible, terrible, capitalist pigs who just want money are responsible for eating disorders, low self esteem, and everything else. The rest of the book she spent time telling stories, as though we didn't get the point all ready that people are unsatisfied with how they look. Then she goes on and on about how women are just objects while men are looked at for their intelligence. Oh, but she ignores the fact that there are TONS of shirts out there for girls that say "Boys make great pets" and "Boys are stupid," etc., yet not ONE about girls. Not to mention the negative advertising about men (I saw one ad about a minivan- "Gets more done than your husband ever will"). Don't bother with this book. It's worthless and only got in my way of reading other books that are actually worth my time.

Disappointing:
I was hoping this might integrate Mintz's insight that thinness is about the symbolic control of consumption with the diet industry. Well, it did in a way, but only by going the tired route of muddling up eating disorders and attempts to control weight, while seeing 275lb women who wanted to lose as the victims of an uncaring society, just like the 130 lb college girls who also wanted to lose. I'm starting to wonder where, if anywhere, we might find sense on this topic. Here we sit, surrounded by size 20s on one hand at size 2 models on the other. There is a genuine crisis. But I can't recommend anything I've read hitherto - except Sidney Mintz. Curious. This is quite well-meaning and has some useful stats on the diet industry, but it's preoccupied with gender irrespective of the way men - and now also nonwhites - have been sucked into the same culture. The gender argument is better in Susan Bordo's work.

women responsible for grrrl power:
Once you get past the rhetoric of victimization from the late 80s/early 90s feminist school, the book offers much information and insight from various studies on how an idea has been sold to us by men...and women.

Horrible Book!!:
This is the worst book I have ever read. The entire book is filled with made up statistics and made up people, giving made up quotes. The author was not subjective at all in her research and is extremely biased towards men! I think that this author had some serious self issues while writing this book! I would never recommend anyone to read this garbage! The author basically spents the entire time, telling how women always forced to starve themselves to get anywhere in this society, which is far from true! And then places the blame on men for the women that do starve themselves, and then insists that men are very subjected to the pressures of society! To prove this point tell me that last time that a male was in the medai, that has body hair on his entire body!!! DON"T READ THIS BOOK!