Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image

Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are

De: Hillary L. McBride, Ramani Durvasula - foreword PhD

Narrado por: Tiffany Morgan

Discover why women are so often unhappy with their appearance - and how they can learn to love themselves. When women are told that what is important about us is how we look, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to feel comfortable with our appearance and how we feel about our bodies. We are told, over and over - if we just lost weight, fit into those old jeans, or into a new smaller pair - we will be happier and feel better about ourselves. The truth is, so many women despise their appearance, weight, and shape, that experts who study women's body image now consider this feeling to be normal.

But it does not have to be that way. It is possible for us as women to love ourselves, our bodies, as we are. We need a new story about what it means to be a woman in this world. Based on her original research, Hillary L. McBride shares the true stories of young women, and their mothers, and provides unique insights into how our relationships with our bodies are shaped by what we see around us and the specific things we can do to have healthier relationships with our appearance, and all the other parts of ourselves that make us women.

In Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image, McBride tells her own story of recovery from an eating disorder, and how her struggles led her to dream of a new vision for womanhood - from one without body shame, negative comparisons, or insecurities, to one of freedom, connection, and acceptance.

©2017 Hillary L. McBride (P)2018 Tantor

Thank you for this

So many thoughts expressed my own so well. Can't wait to listen to it again.

Excellent and Practical

Scientifically-sound information and compassionate to where it hits home. Excellent read! Even offers wonderful reflection questions at the end of each chapter.

My daughter is 8

A good book to help be conscious about our world and how they way we were raised will affect how we raise our own little ladies. It was a good reminder of how the way things are worded as well as this in combo with society can shape our little ladies or scar them. I’ve been reflecting on it a lot.

Healing & Paving the way..

This book was so healing to my child self and filled me with excitement on what to do differently for my daughter some day

Wonderful book

Love it & it was read wonderfully. I learned so much from this book. Helpful ways of thinking to help me progress in my struggle with my body image, being the generational change and raising a new daughter to love herself. Thank you!

Excellent

I loved the tone of voice.
Tiffany performed it beautifully.
Hillary wrote a superb book that challenges the way I think of being a woman in this world filled with preconceptions and society norms for what it means to be female.

Everyone should read this

I think everyone should read this- Not just mothers, daughters, and women. But men could learn SO MUCH and then do their part in steering the world towards a healthier place.
Very interesting to hear these experiences. Very informative to hear things from the psychologist's perspective. And so touching and so raw at times- to hear this psychologist speaking as just another human and sharing her own struggles. I'm grateful for the things she shared in this book and the work she put into it is... incredible!

A Psychologist's rambling case studies and personal story

There's no gentle way to put this: this book could have been so much more, but it's just OK overall. I am grateful that the author chose to delve in to this niche, crucial topic. However, the book spends way too much time telling the stories of individual women the author knows and not nearly enough time mentioning research of any kind or broad patterns. The women the author chooses to talk about did develop positive body confidence from how their families raised them, so it can be useful to hear their examples of you need to hear examples of giving girls positive examples about their body goes.

The author briefly mentioned media and music videos. She didn't mention the topic for escalating importance concerning girls and body image: social media. I had momentarily assumed this book was a bit dated. I was shocked to see online that it was published in 2017. I know there was research on girls developing negative body image issues from social media use from well before then, because Dr. Sax explicitly mentioned this in his book Girls on the Edge, which was published in 2010 or so.

The author doesn't mention why mothers somehow hold a special place in their daughters development of positive body image as opposed to their fathers, grandparents, or anyone else. It would have been helpful if the author dedicated a specific section of research backed things women and girls and do to develop positive body image. However, the things she suggests are interspersed through the book. There are two specific riveting things that I learned from this book, which is largely why my review has 3 stars and not 2.

The author wants readers to do the impossible: to pretend that every single person on the planet is beautiful, when that's absolutely not true. I agree with other claims that she makes, though. I don't why Dr. Durvasula chose to penna forward to this. Audible let me have this for free. However, I wouldn't spend my money or credits on this title with where I am now. If you are struggling with an eating disorder and either can't afford professional help or want something "extra" to listen to as you work from someone, perhaps this could be helpful to you.

Hopefully professionals who choose to write about this niche, and crucial, topic going forward will use less personal stories and more patterns, research, and segments with more suggestions on developing a healthy self image, especially for women whose mothers had a huge part to play in their daughters not developing a healthy self image.

The narrators voice is aggravating at times. The narrator's voice had the quality of a woman who is talking to, teaching, and redirecting babies on toddlers. Perhaps that was done intentionally to try to make listeners feel like a warm, kind, maternal figure was talking to them, but her voice just wore on me.

Christian Bias

Unfortunately this author loses scientific credibility in chapter 10, when they default to a pro-Christianity argument. They use terms exclusive to Christianity to describe all spirituality, and demonstrate that they did not interview any non-Christians for their study, and gave a clear pro-Christian bias themselves.