Im Like So Fat or Cults

I'm, Like, So Fat!: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices about Eating and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World

Author: Dianne Neumark Sztainer

Hit the gym for a workout--but sit for hours at your computer. Supersize your value meals--but downsize your waistline. Today's media-saturated teenagers are bombarded with mixed messages that distort their self-image and lead many to overeat and others to starve themselves. When "I feel fat" becomes a teen's common refrain, how can worried parents respond constructively? With "I'm, Like, SO Fat!" Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer shows parents how to strike the difficult balance between bolstering self-esteem and offering constructive advice. Drawing on her landmark study, Project EAT (Eating Among Teens), and her experience as a mother of four, Neumark-Sztainer offers a wealth of science-based, practical ideas for instilling healthy eating and exercise habits, educating teens about nutrition and portion size, and talking about body image. Here is a rock-solid foundation that parents everywhere can build on to help their teens stay fit, eat well, and feel good about their looks in a world where too-perfect bodies are used to sell everything from cosmetic surgery to fast food.

Library Journal

Health It is indeed a weight-obsessed world when even Cookie Monster comes under fire for his eating habits. In this thorough and sensible book, Neumark-Sztainer (epidemiology, Univ. of Minnesota) shows parents how to help their teens make wise food choices-now and in the future. With the blunt advice that one should never "go on a diet," the author stresses lifestyle changes, not quick fixes. Parents can be positive role models by providing healthy breakfasts and dinners, reducing kids' time watching TV images of thin people, and helping kids make wise choices of food on the go. Teens need to know (and they don't) what a portion is, what a calorie is, and why these are important. The approach here is practical and not authoritarian; the author knows it's difficult to ask teens to give up fries and large sodas; she knows families eat out, but it doesn't need to be a high-fat, high-calorie experience. There's nothing here about the new food pyramid, and low-carb diets that label whole food groups as bad are not seen as helpful. James Lock and Daniel La Grange's Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder focuses more on disorders; this book stresses health. Excellent for public libraries.-Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

I. What Are We Up Against...and How Did We Get Here, Anyway?
1. If It's Not One Thing, It's Another: Dealing with a Spectrum of Weight-Related Problems
2. Our Susceptible Teens: What We Know about Causes and Contributing Factors
II. How Can We Protect Our Teens When Society Pushes Fat but Promotes Thin?
3. Parents Matter (a Lot)
4. Friends, Fashions, and Fads
5. Physical Activity: A Big Part of the Answer...in Moderation
6. The Great Diet Debate
7. The Four Cornerstones of Healthy Weight and Body Image
III. What and How Much Should Teenagers Eat?
8. "I Know How to Diet...I Just Don't Know How to Eat": What Teens Need to Know about Nutrition
9. Portion Control and Calorie Counting: Teaching Teens to Pay Attention without Obsessing
10. Vegetarianism: Doing It Right-for Your Teen and Your Family
IV. How Can We Make a Difference at Home...and Away?
11. Family Meals in a Fast-Food World
12. Eating Out: When Cooking Just Isn't Going to Happen
13. Fluent in the F Words: Talking with Teens about Food, Fat, and Other Touchy Topics
V. What Can We Do When Problems Come Up?
14. Helping an Overweight Teen Be Healthy and Happy
15. How to Spot the Signs of an Eating Disorder and What You Can Do to Help
*Resources for Parents and Teens

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Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion

Author: Marc Galanter

From the mass weddings of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church to the ritual suicides at Heaven's Gate, charismatic cults and their devotees have become facts of American life. Using material gleaned from twenty-five years of direct encounters with cults and their detractors, as well as extensive research, Marc Galanter offers the most extensive psychological analysis of these organizations available. Cults explores not only how members feel and think at all stages of their involvement, but also how larger social and psychological forces reinforce individual commitment within the cults.