Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women

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Renee Engeln, PhD, is an award-winning professor of psychology at Northwestern University. Her work has appeared in numerous academic journals and at academic conferences, and she speaks to groups across the country. She is regularly interviewed by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Today.com, the Huffington Post, Think Progress, and other national media, as well as local outlets and college student publications. Her TEDx talk at the University of Connecticut has more than 450,000 views on YouTube. She lives in Evanston, Illinois. Hemos creado una cultura que les dice a las mujeres que lo más importante que pueden conseguir es ser guapas. Y a continuación las machacamos con un estándar de belleza al que nunca llegarán.” Recently I was with friends & plastic surgery came up— one said since everyone is doing it, it’s only a matter of time we do too, otherwise we’ll “fall behind.” Another agreed & said her job depends on it. While I vehemently disagreed, I sadly understood where their thinking came from— we do live in a world where beauty is currency & is often valued above most else. An award-winning psychology professor reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Peggy Orenstein and Sheryl Sandberg.

If we train young women to believe their most important asset is their appearance … It is no coincidence that when women say things men don't like, the response is often not a critique of their ideas, but a critique of their appear-ance. This is the logical outcome of seeing women as objects instead of as human beings.” Ah, naturalmente al posto dello specchio in frantumi della copertina originale, simbolo della liberazione della donna dall'ossessione per l'aspetto fisico, in Italia ci hanno messo un bel torso femminile con il metro da sarta intorno a misurare meticolosamente il punto vita. Ci tengo a specificare che il voto l'ho dato unicamente in base al contenuto, perchè se avessi dovuto tener conto dello SCHIFO che ha fatto la casa editrice italiana nella presentazione di questo saggio lo avrei dovuto abbassare di un bel po'. An award-winning Northwestern University psychology professor reveals how the culturalobsession with women's appearanceis an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Naomi Wolf, Peggy Orenstein, and Sheryl Sandberg. Take a careful look around you the next time you’re walking in a crowded area. If you pay close attention, you’ll see women of myriad body shapes and sizes, hair colors, facial features, and ages. It’s easy to forget the actual landscape of women’s appearances, because the range of what we see in media is so narrow.”

Hyper focusing on how we look takes away our ability to be compassionate, to see clearly who we and other people are and what we and others need. I want to apologize to all the women I have called beautiful before I've called them intelligent or brave This was a really interesting read that has me thinking a lot about how I talk to other women. It is second nature to compliment something about how another girl or woman looks, but I'm trying to jump to more important things in my conversations. Here are my notes on the book, mostly for myself so I can remember it for later. I love the idea, the message and the stories of interviewees but the writing style of this book is not my favorite.

Dr. Renee Engeln is a professor at Northwestern University, where she teaches about psychopathology, the psychology of women and gender, social psychology, and the psychology of human beauty. She is an award-winning professor, having amassed over a dozen teaching awards at both Loyola University and Northwestern. Chronic body monitoring is a ridiculous price to pay for fashion, but as women, we pay it all the time in dozens of different ways. I don’t want young women to feel shame about their bodies. I don’t want them to be called sluts when they wear what fashion moguls have decided to be the in style of the season. They should be able to wear whatever they are comfortable wearing. But how comfortable are they? We should have the freedom to dress how we see fit, but we should also have the freedom to be present in the moment. If we are to monitor ourselves, I want us to be able to monitor our thoughts and feelings, our desires and goals, not our appearance.” Would i hate this about myself if i was born completely alone. Stranded on a island. Is a question that i asked myself a lot in 2022. It helped me recognize the absurdity in my insecurities, and helped me with my decision making, moving forward with my life. Talk positively about what your body can do and talk with your kids about what their bodies can do. Reading this book made me excited to talk with my kids about things that we love that our bodies can do. I would like to say, "My body made you! My body allows me to cuddle with you guys, go on walks, laugh, read, swing, bake, and write. I like to do things that give me energy and that will help my body have energy and feel good for a long time so that I can keep doing things with our family. What do you like about your body?"Award-winning Northwestern University psychology professor Dr. Renee Engeln reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms their ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Naomi Wolf, Peggy Orenstein, and Sheryl Sandberg. Furthermore, I think she frequently mistakes a socioeconomically based anxiety--fear of appearing inappropriate for a social group--with her more body obsessed target group. This is clearly a different thing and far more gender neutral. Avoid media that objectifies women and help others avoid it as well. Voice critiques out loud to help children process what is wrong with the media they are seeing, otherwise we allow media and society to perpetuate ideas that women are only as valuable as they look, that looks should be one of the top things they care about, and that it is normal and acceptable to comment on women's looks in ways that it would never occur to us to talk about how men look. The thing is--Engeln had some good ideas, and I think her thesis as a whole is something that is worth looking in to.