Salal Communications Ltd

When Girls Feel Fat helps parents, mentors and girls themselves to understand and cope with the difficult process of adolescence. As girls go through puberty in a culture that values them predominately according to how they look, their bodies get bigger and rounder while society tells them that they must be thin. Girls also experience changes in their lives as they reinvent themselves in order to fit into the adult world. The once-feisty know-it-all is silenced as she begins to keep her feelings and opinions to herself. Instead of meeting others with honesty she focuses on being kind and “nice”. Instead of being direct in her relationships she holds back — because she is overly concerned with pleasing others. Instead of acting upon her natural curiosity, she is preoccupied with being “perfect”.

During adolescence many girls deal with the changes in their lives by deflecting them onto their bodies. They internalize their distress through the use of a negative voice. They feel ugly, stupid and — most of all — fat. Feeling “fat” usually means a girl is feeling inadequate or disappointed or angry or any of the other emotions that are difficult for them to express. This book explains why “feeling fat” has nothing to do with the weight on one’s body. It is instead a code for expressing stressful and negative feelings — a way of repressing real feelings and translating real events into the language of “fat”.

When Girls Feel Fat gives parents, teachers and other professionals who work with girls empathetic, clear and proven strategies to maintain a connection in the face of this ‘tuning out’, to deal with conflict, to address bullying, to recognize how worries about weight can lead to serious eating disorders and to cope with the grungies — my term for the voice of girls’ self-deprecating negative feelings.

When Girls Feel Fat provides a framework that is based upon contemporary theories of brain sex and female development, strategies for decoding the language of fat, and a context for the issues and concerns that lie underneath. It demystifies the relationships girls have with their body image, their friends, parents, puberty, sexuality, eating disorders, school and the media. The Time Out for Yourself found in many chapters helps you reflect on your own issues. Time for Each Other provides you with skills and ideas for addressing these issues directly with your girls.

In the face of today’s dieting epidemic, When Girls Feel Fat is a practical, timely, easy to read book that will help parents, teachers and others who work with girls guide them into healthy, confident womanhood. It is also a valuable resource for girls who are hungry for information about themselves.

“When Girls Feel Fat brings together the incredible range of things Sandra Friedman has learned in her groundbreaking, successful efforts to prevent and treat girls’ eating disorders. Clearly and convincingly Sandra show how each of us—girls, parents, schools, media, relative, friends and community leaders—can confront and resist the things that damage our daughters. This is a solid and realistic look at girls’ adolescence and a very valuable book.”

Joe Kelly—“The Dad Man”
author of Dads and Daughters

“When Girls Feel Fat is more than a book. It is a partnership between the reader and the author and the beginning of a journey to a land where the language of fat is not the only one available to girls.”

Margo Maine, principal of Maine & Weinstein Specialty Group
author of The Body Myth:
Adult Women and the Pressure to be Perfect
(with Joe Kelly)