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

by Renee Engeln PhD

Overview

“[Beauty Sick] will blow the top off the body image movement…provocative and necessary.” — Rebellious Magazine

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.

Today’s young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don’t want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They’re angry about the media’s treatment of women but hungrily consume the outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture’s absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn’t real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward.

In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln, whose TEDx talk on beauty sickness has received more than 250,000 views, reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real women of all ages, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words—from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary about other women. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves, to transform their lives, claim the futures they deserve, and, ultimately, change their world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062469786
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/17/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	217,064
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Part 1 This Is Beauty Sickness

Chapter 1 Will I Be Pretty? 3

Chapter 2 Just Like a Woman 21

Chapter 3 I, Object 39

Part 2 This Is What Beauty Sickness Does to Women

Chapter 4 Your Mind on Your Body and Your Body on Your Mind 63

Chapter 5 It's a Shame 89

Chapter 6 Your Money and Your Time 111

Part 3 This Is How the Media Feeds Beauty Sickness

Chapter 7 Malignant Mainstream Media 141

Chapter 8 (Anti)social Media and Online Obsessions 169

Part 4 The Ways We're Fighting Beauty Sickness Aren't Working

Chapter 9 Media Literacy Is Not Enough 195

Chapter 10 The Problem with "Real Beauty" 213

Part 5 How We Can Fight Beauty Sickness

Chapter 11 Turning Down the Volume 231

Chapter 12 Stop the Body Talk 255

Chapter 13 Function over Form 279

Chapter 14 Learning to Love Your Body and Teaching Others to Do the Same 305

Chapter 15 Turning Away from the Mirror to Face the World 331

Acknowledgments 357

Notes 359

Index 371

Editorial Reviews

Girls learn that how they look is more important than who they are—the essential symptom of beauty sickness.’ But Engeln doesn’t stop at diagnosis: she offers the possibility of a cure.” — Peggy Orenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex

“Her solid ideas...will help women think positively about themselves regardless of body shape. Thorough research and helpful personal stories effectively relay the dilemma that nearly all women face on a daily basis.” — Kirkus Reviews

“[Beauty Sick] will blow the top off the body image movement…provocative and necessary.” — Rebellious Magazine

“Renee Engeln...argues that our obsession with women’s looks amounts to a society-wide psychological illness...The book indicts social and news media in helping to create beauty sickness by drawing on research and interviews with real-world girls and women.” — Pacific Standard

“[P]rofessor Engeln’s sharp examination of beauty sickness reveals its disturbing impact on women of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds...Engeln’s writing is engaging and conversational...Engeln’s book is thought provoking and will be fascinating for all readers, especially those interested in psychology, cultural studies, media, or gender studies.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Engeln’s new book, Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession With Appearance Hurts Girls and Women (Harper), explores the ways we remind women—young and old—that the most important thing they can be is beautiful.” — Chicago Tribune

“Inspiring.” — PureWow

“Info-packed...highly readable...” — Elle

“Beauty Sick is the title of Engeln’s new book, which has more than 350 pages of exhaustive research, interviews, and analysis into the set of contradictions that inform the reality of millions of women’s lives.” — The Times (London)

From the Publisher

Girls learn that how they look is more important than who they are—the essential symptom of beauty sickness.’ But Engeln doesn’t stop at diagnosis: she offers the possibility of a cure.

Peggy Orenstein

Inspiring.

PureWow

Info-packed...highly readable...

Elle

[Beauty Sick] will blow the top off the body image movement…provocative and necessary.

Rebellious Magazine

[P]rofessor Engeln’s sharp examination of beauty sickness reveals its disturbing impact on women of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds...Engeln’s writing is engaging and conversational...Engeln’s book is thought provoking and will be fascinating for all readers, especially those interested in psychology, cultural studies, media, or gender studies.

Booklist (starred review)

Beauty Sick is the title of Engeln’s new book, which has more than 350 pages of exhaustive research, interviews, and analysis into the set of contradictions that inform the reality of millions of women’s lives.

The Times (London)

Engeln’s new book, Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession With Appearance Hurts Girls and Women (Harper), explores the ways we remind women—young and old—that the most important thing they can be is beautiful.

Chicago Tribune

Renee Engeln...argues that our obsession with women’s looks amounts to a society-wide psychological illness...The book indicts social and news media in helping to create beauty sickness by drawing on research and interviews with real-world girls and women.

Pacific Standard

Engeln’s new book, Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession With Appearance Hurts Girls and Women (Harper), explores the ways we remind women—young and old—that the most important thing they can be is beautiful.

Chicago Tribune

03/15/2017
Engeln teaches psychology at Northwestern University where she runs the Body and Media Lab (BAM), and became known for her 2013 TEDx talk, "An Epidemic of Beauty Sickness." A scholar at ease with social media and popular culture, she offers compelling evidence about how women and girls have been "brainwashed" into believing stereotypes about what is "beautiful." This never-ending quest, Engeln suggests, leaves women dispirited, unable to use their time more meaningfully, and lighter in the pocketbook each time they buy new products that promise them (however enlightened they appear to be) love and happiness. Although obviously angry, the author can also be judicious and honest about the quandaries women (including herself) face. VERDICT There's a world of complexity attached to the idea of being beautiful, and this well-written discussion about particular aspects of it should be well received in both public and academic libraries.—Ellen Gilbert, Princeton, NJ

Library Journal

2017-02-19
How real women continue to struggle to reach the fictitious goal of having the perfect body.Women often joke about having a bad hair day or how they can find nothing to wear, but as Engeln (Psychology/Northwestern Univ.) discovered through her intensive research and numerous interviews, our culture holds women to an impossible standard of perfection. The struggle to reach that pinnacle, even when women acknowledge that it's impossible, is creating a sector of society that is fearful and anxious about body image from a very young age. Women spend hours fussing and primping their hair, makeup, and nails and planning the perfect outfit and almost every waking moment worrying about their weight and body image. Engeln calls this pervasive situation "beauty sickness"—"what happens when women's emotional energy gets so bound up with what they see in the mirror that it becomes harder for them to see other aspects of their lives." Furthermore, she writes, "although we hear the most about beauty sickness in young women, it's a malaise that affects women of all ages." From as early as age 5, girls fret about their weight and appearance, and they quickly discover that what they wear can affect their chances to play like their male friends. As girls move into adolescence and young adulthood, the objectification intensifies, and women discover that they must walk a fine line between feeling powerful, sexy, and attractive and being considered slutty for wearing revealing clothes. It's a double standard that can affect women in every area of their lives. As Engeln points out, change starts at the individual level, with women taking possession of their own thoughts. Her solid ideas, mostly related in the final section, "How We Can Fight Beauty Sickness," will help women think positively about themselves regardless of body shape. Thorough research and helpful personal stories effectively relay the dilemma that nearly all women face on a daily basis.

Kirkus Reviews