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

Author: Renee Engeln PhDPaperback:Publisher: Harper PaperbacksISBN 10: 0062469789ISBN 13: 978-0062469786Hardcover:Publisher: HarperISBN 10: 0062469770ISBN 13: 978-0062469779An award-winning Northwestern University 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 Naomi Wolf, 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 very 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