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

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

Synopsis

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 Teenagers), 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.

Excerpt

“I’m, like, SO fat … why can’t I look like Heather?”

“Ewwww, I can’t eat THAT. Look at all that GREASE…. Wanna go get a

Frappuccino?”

“I’m being really good today: I haven’t eaten a single calorie.”

“No, I’m not eating dinner, Dad; gotta make weight. I’ll be at the gym,

probably till you’re in bed.”

Sound familiar? Even fleeting encounters with teenagers today will tell you volumes about the pressures they’re up against: “Supersize it” … but downsize yourself. “Just do it” … or just stay home watching reality TV and IMing your friends. Hang out at the mall with the other kids, where you’ll feel worse and worse about not fitting into those size 1 designer jeans, until you fs that promote obesity but reward thinness. We’re surrounded by high-calorie, low-nutrient food. Portion sizes have grown dramatically. Technological advances make it easy to get through the day without breaking a sweat. And I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but in my neighborhood kids aren’t out playing tag and hide-and-seek like we used to do. Yet we’re all supposed to stay thin and muscular.

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Weight Bias: Nature, Consequences, and Remedies

Synopsis

Discrimination based on body shape and size remains commonplace in today's society. This important volume explores the nature, causes, and consequences of weight bias and presents a range of approaches to combat it. Leading psychologists, health professionals, attorneys, and advocates cover such critical topics as the barriers facing obese adults and children in health care, work, and school settings; how to conceptualize and measure weight-related stigmatization; theories on how stigma develops; the impact on self-esteem and health, quite apart from the physiological effects of obesity; and strategies for reducing prejudice and bringing about systemic change.

Excerpt

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false

appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by

weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by

prejudice.

—ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1851)

In free societies, bias, stigma, prejudice, and discrimination are considered inherently evil, seen as a threat to the health, happiness, and social status of those targeted, but also to a nation's fundamental values of inclusion and equality. The behaviors resulting from prejudice range from minor infractions of civility to genocide.

Prejudice and the discrimination it breeds are passed through generations, socialized through multiple channels, and often occur in people who believe themselves to be fair-minded. In areas such as race and gender bias, there is a rich tradition of research, advocacy, social action, and public policy designed to understand causes and to design methods for prevention. Bias based on race and gender has not been eliminated, but progress has been made. This is less the case with weight bias.

Research and social policy on weight bias and discrimination lag far behind, to the point where negative attitudes based on weight have been labeled the last acceptable form of discrimination (Puhl & Brownell . . .

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The Loss of a Life Partner: Narratives of the Bereaved

The Loss of a Life Partner: Narratives of the Bereaved

Synopsis

Although there is extensive research on the loss of a spouse, predominantly focusing on the experiences of widows, much less attention is paid to bereaved partners not married to their significant other, whether or not the partners are of the same sex. This first-of-its-kind work explores both socially sanctioned and disenfranchised grief, highlighting similarities and differences. Combining a discussion of various theories of grief with personal narratives of grieving men and women drawn from numerous interviews, and detailed case study analysis, Carolyn Ambler Walter has produced a penetrating examination of the bereavement experiences of partners in varying types of relationships. She views narratives of widows, widowers, and bereaved domestic gay and lesbian partners from a postmodern perspective that breaks away from the traditional belief that the living must detach themselves from the dead in order to move on with their lives. Instead, building on the works of postmodern grief theorists such as Klass, Silverman, and Nickman, Walter views ongoing bonds with the dead as a resource for enriching functionality in the present, and as a key to looking to the future.

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Coping with Loss

Coping with Loss

Synopsis

This book integrates groundbreaking new research, theory, and clinical insights to present a comprehensive picture of how different goups of bereaved people cope with their losses.

Excerpt

This book is based on the Bereavement Coping Project, a long-term study of several hundred people who lost a loved one. The Bereavement Coping Project began as just another research study. It soon became an avenue for spending time with some of the most inspiring and interesting people we have ever met. Chief among these were the hospice people--the nurses, social workers, counselors, and volunteers--who have dedicated their lives to improving the last days of severely ill people and assisting families through grief. We consulted with these dedicated professionals and volunteers extensively in designing this study. The hospice staff then recruited family members into the study for us and gave us continual feedback through its end. We simply could not have done this study without them, and the information we gained would have been much less rich if not for the many questions and concerns hospice people suggested we address. We are deeply grateful to Maureen Medders, Carol Gray, Kitsy Schoen, Gayle Bigelow, Maxine Montgomery, Linda Appleton, Nancy Sabonya, Ruth Schlecta, Donna Bell, Barbara Noggle, Bonnie Kick, tBarbara Weissman, Susan Poor, and all the other hospice people who allowed us to spend some time with them and the people they serve. Special thanks to Margaret Gainer for the many, many hours and great love she put into this project.

We are also deeply grateful to the family members who participated in this study. Many people were reluctant to participate, but did so in hope that the information they provided could be helpful to future bereaved people. Our goal in writing this book was to fulfill that hope--to serve as a conduit for their experiences and insights--so that bereaved people and those who serve bereaved people could be informed by these experiences and insights. We have . . .

Young People's Experiences of Loss and Bereavement: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach

Synopsis

"This intellectually stimulating book demonstrates the authors are well-read and possess elegant synthesizing skills.... I found the authors to be wise and insightful and their presentation of ideas complex and balanced." 

Omega: Journal of Death and Dying

"What it does extremely well, and, indeed, uniquely is provide a wide and deep exploration of the extensive, often bewildering and conflicting, literature about the experiences of young people, loss and bereavement, drawing from it useful conclusions as well as identifying gaps in the research, and pointing to possible ways forward." 

BereavementCare

What is the significance of death in contemporary society?

How do young people come to terms with loss and bereavement?

Evidence shows that bereavement is an issue that touches the lives of the majority of young people, and yet it is often left to the province of specialists. This timely book provides the first in-depth, interdisciplinary overview of our knowledge and theorizing of bereavement and young people including the voices of young people, as well as major statistical studies of cohorts of young people followed over many years.

Taking a broad sweep across a great range of relevant literatures, this book breaks new ground in spanning theoretical issues and empirical research to examine critically what we know about this important - but often neglected - issue. It also features in-depth original case studies of young people who have experienced bereavement and uses these as a basis for exploring how loss and bereavement impact upon young people's lives.

Young People's Experiences of Loss and Bereavement provides essential reading on issues of loss, change and bereavement for students, researchers and professionals across a wide range of health and social care disciplines, especially those involving family and youth work.

Excerpt

Bereavement is a stage of life evoking even more anxiety than adolescence …

(Walter 1999: 141)

Death and bereavement are issues that contemporary western societies struggle to deal with. Since the period of the Enlightenment, the decline of religion and the march of scientific progress have given rise to a culture which leaves people generally searching to know how to make any sense of death and bereavement, and how to cope with the emotional chaos that may result (Walter 1999). Contemporary western lifestyles increasingly emphasize individual rational choice and self-control, while encounters with death and bereavement may arguably pose challenges to such secularized personal lifestyle projects.

Young people similarly may be seen as threatening to the rational order and self-control of modern civilized society. While the particular anxieties aroused by youth may differ from those aroused by bereavement, from a more general perspective, anthropologists have long pointed out that the boundaries between different social categories or social settings may be fraught with ambiguity and tension. The status of youth, and the status of bereavement, may both be experienced as periods of such marginality, with all the attendant possibilities for uncertainty and disruption.

Both these statuses may also be understood not just as marginal and disruptive, but also as transitional, with youth constituting a time of transition between childhood and adulthood, and bereavement a time of psychosocial transition between one set of significant relationships and another. While the theme of transition does not inevitably connote loss, it does necessarily imply change, and whether or not it is experienced as a loss, change in itself may arouse fears of the unknown and the potentially chaotic. The juxtaposition of bereavement and young people may thus suggest a double jeopardy, invoking deep anxiety, whether among professionals, academics and researchers, or people in their everyday lives, as we consider the transitions and potential disruptions of young people who are experiencing the impact of bereavement.

This book focuses on two particular disparate sets of issues: those concerning the category and experiences of ‘young people’ on the one hand, and . . .

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The Gendering of Melancholia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature

Synopsis

The pantheon of renowned melancholics-from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Walter Benjamin-includes no women, an absence that in Juliana Schiesari's view points less to a dearth of unhappy women in patriarchal culture than to the lack of significance accorded to women's grief. Through penetrating readings of texts from Aristotle to Kristeva, she illuminates the complex history of the symbolics of loss in Renaissance literature.

Excerpt

This book is about the cultural status of an affect. The affect in question is variably called depression, melancholia, or even mourning. How such different namings come about is an issue of cultural politics, and the role of gender in these designations is not innocent. What I try to show, in the following pages, is the insistence of what could be called a politics of lack in a certain cultural representation of loss known as melancholia. By a politics of lack, I mean the attribution of value to some subjects who lack but not to others who appear equally "lacking." To anyone with a feminist perspective, it is no surprise that this politics of lack operates along gender lines: as I show in my readings of various texts, women's lack (ironically) never turns out to be quite lacking enough, while the sense of lack foregrounded in such great men as Petrarch, Ficino, and Tasso or the character of Hamlet paradoxically works to their credit as the sign of inspired genius. This gender dissymmetry is not simply an effect of my interpretation; it is the historical legacy of these canonical figures.

Unlike many contemporary feminist critics, I do not restrict myself to texts written by women; nor is my aim the deconstructive one of discovering the repressed femininity supposedly to be found in the most misogynist of male texts. Rather, I seek to situate the texts of male melancholia along with their received cultural values in relation to other texts, notably lesser-known ones by women, that question the ways lack . . .

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Loss: The Politics of Mourning

Synopsis

"If catastrophe is not representable according to the narrative explanations which would 'make sense' of history, then making sense of ourselves anda charting the future are not impossible. But we are, as it were, marked for life, and that mark is insuperable, irrecoverable. It becomes the condition by which life is risked, by which the question of whether one can move, and with whom, and in what way is framed and incited by the irreversibility of loss itself."--Judith Butler, from the "Afterword

""Loss is a wonderful volume: powerful and important, deeply moving and intellectually challenging at the same time, ethical and not moralistic. It is one of those rare collections that work as a multifaceted whole to map new areas for inquiry and pose new questions. I found myself educated and provoked by the experience of participating in an ongoing dialogue."--Amy Kaplan, author of "The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture

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Helping Children Live with Death and Loss

Synopsis

Helping Children Live with Death and Loss is a practical guide for parents, caregivers, teachers, clergy, funeral directors, and other adults who may interact with young children between the ages of two and ten. Utilizing a developmental approach that is critical for understanding the unique characteristics and needs among children under ten, the volume is enhanced by an accessible style and format, numerous illustrations, and the positive attitude that make it possible for any reader to comprehend and apply the concepts when discussing death and loss with young children.

The scope of concepts ranges from adult self-assessment to knowledge of children's developmental stages in learning. Building on that foundation, the book provides four basic content areas for teaching, supplies sample questions and answers, and suggests strategies for teaching general death education as well as strategies for responding to a current death or loss. The resource concludes with print and internet sources for adults and children. Helping Children Live with Death and Loss also aids adults and children in improving their communication and coping skills, which are critical for managing loss and preparing for a healthier future.

Excerpt

People who face the challenge of dealing directly with death and loss often find strengths within themselves that they never knew existed. They may discover that they are truly up to the challenge. They may realize that personal growth can change their perspectives about death and add meaning to their lives. Having witnessed this personal growth in ourselves, friends, loved ones, and students, we developed a commitment to education about death and loss. Our combined history and professional experiences convinced us that this topic is so important it must be shared and explored.

As you read, you'll find that the foundation of our research comes from classic sources because they withstand the test of time very well. Our references and additional readings, however, are updated to include resources with more current examples, applications, and illustrations.

Because we know that children can learn to understand death, because we have respect for their capacity to be resilient and face difficult experiences, and because we know that children can experience the benefits of personal growth, we believe that death education should be shared with children as well as adults. Indeed, in this time of increased mass media reporting of school violence and terrorism close to home, all children potentially are at risk for feeling a major loss in their sense of safety and security. Even when events reported by the media don't affect children directly, indirectly they are affected by being forced into a new reality that “it could happen here” and “it could happen to me. ” Caring adults must be prepared to provide the education and support children need as they attempt to incorporate this new view into their world.

Since our professional approaches always have emphasized practical applications of concepts through teaching and writing, this book was a natural and exciting step. As we thought about the purpose of this book, we decided on these goals:

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Loss and Bereavement

Synopsis

"This book aims to provide students with an understanding of important theoretical perspectives and specific models of adaptation to loss. It is assumed that loss and change are normal processes that occur within a social and cultural context, and the reader is introduced to historical and cultural perspectives which illustrate the diversity of approaches to loss. Major theoretical perspectives are explored to enable students to understand their origins and influence. This is a comprehensive text describing the variety of approaches available to understand the process of loss and bereavement." Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Excerpt

It is evident that death and grief are too multisplendoured and

complex to be trussed up in the conceptual straitjacket of any

one discipline.

(Feifel 1998: 4)

This book is about loss, and specifically about how we investigate and attempt to understand the impact of loss by death on individuals, families and larger social groups on the one hand, and how individual and group factors shape our experience of loss on the other.

In past times, in many cultures, dying, death and bereavement were the province of the family, neighbours and priests or their equivalent. In some cultures, tasks such as laying out the corpse or keening over the body were undertaken by certain specialists who were usually paid for their services this is still true in many countries of the world - but they were typically members of the community and known to the family. Today, in much of the western world, death and the issues surrounding it have become professionalized and may incorporate the services of nurses, doctors, undertakers, psychologists and counsellors among others. The implications of these changes are among the issues we will consider in this book. Perhaps it is to the institutionalization of dying and death that we owe the development of the science of thanatology, whose scholars seek to explore and describe the issues in order to enhance our understanding and, it is to be hoped, our management of them.

That the study of bereavement and its associated phenomena is now an established subdiscipline of the psychosocial and clinical sciences is fitting for a topic which is both universal and deeply significant in human experience. The impact of significant loss by death results in the need for adaptation at both individual and group levels, and the process of such adaptation may be prolonged and painful. The means by which individuals and groups manage and contain the impact of bereavement, and the social and individual constructions of the 'right' and 'wrong' ways to accomplish the necessary adaptation are proving to be complex and demanding areas of study.

In the field of health, researchers and clinicians have noted the morbidity and mortality and the physical and psychosocial disturbances that accompany . . .

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Grief Unseen: Healing Pregnancy Loss through the Arts

Synopsis

"There is a growing awareness in the counselling and pastoral care professions that the appropriate use of imagery and symbolism in counselling can be a useful tool in helping clients to resolve inner conflicts which they would otherwise find hard to confront. This comprehensive book explores the therapeutic use of imagination and how the use of myths, legends and spontaneous images can clothe feelings with images, and thereby make them easier to work with and control." "The book is intended as a working model which takes the reader through the various stages of imagery and symbolism, and is illustrated by many case studies that highlight various principles and topics, and create a bridge between theory and practice. A companion volume Dictionary of Images and Symbols in Counselling provides an 'A-Z' of images and symbols." Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Excerpt

Grief Unseen: Healing Pregnancy Loss Through the Arts is a genuine gift – one that can be especially understood and appreciated because the author, Laura Seftel, has personally lived through the loss of her own baby in miscarriage and over time has discovered some of the resulting gifts. Thankfully, she shares them with all of us through this new book.

The club that no one wants to join: The Secret Club. These are words I have used for years when speaking to families who have had a baby die in miscarriage, stillbirth or other infant death. I joined this club unwillingly in 1979 after our miscarriage and again in 1981 after the full-term stillbirth of our son. Sadly, the silence following each was deafening. The world, my family, my friends, and colleagues felt terrible for us but they had no words or experience to know how to talk with my husband David and me. Nor did we, at the time.

Our little treasures were gone. Poof. Outwardly we looked much the same; inwardly we were a mess, a disaster with no sense of how to cope or even begin to heal. First we had to feel it and grieve it: something foreign to both of us.

Over the many months that followed, I did discover the need to remember both Brennan, our stillborn son and Marama, our newly named miscarried baby. The process of remembering, expressing my feelings, and reaching out to others came out in the art form of writing. I had not found a book to read at the time, nor did I find one piece of expressive artwork that gave voice to my feelings. So I wrote my own.

As I look back, it is now clear that the early 1980s were the transition period from the “dark ages of perinatal bereavement” when little or no words were spoken beyond, “I’m so very sorry,” if one was lucky enough to hear that. Miscarriage, stillbirth, and even the death of a baby who lived briefly were considered by most people as “non-events.”

Thankfully, things began to change around that time and I was fortunate to be one of the handful of people who were inspired to be a part of that change. With Susan Erling and six other bereaved parents, we created a national nonprofit organization – the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Center in 

Minneapolis.

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