"It appears that the more powerful women become, the more pressure there is for us to get rid of the padding and curves that make our bodies so different from the bodies of men...When we lash out at our stomachs and thighs, our hips, our backsides, our breasts, and our cellulite, we are hating our femaleness.
We live in a culture that demonstrates its ambivalence toward women in the prevalence of rape and battering. When we hate our bodies, we are turning against ourselves."
-From When Women Stop Hating Our Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsession, Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter; Fawcett Columbine, 1955
Body Image Resources
Encouraging Positive Body Image and Ending the Objectification of Women's Bodies in the Media and Society at Large
This page was updated in January, 2004. As of now, all the links currently listed are working. Many have been removed, as they have gone offline.
The Our Bodies, Our Selves reading room at Feminist.Com has excerpts from the most recent edition of the book, Our Bodies, Our Selves (updated link)
Real Women is a multi-sensory exploration of body image and its profound impact on women's health and well being. It is a series of 13 small bronze sculptures and poems portraying women of diverse size, shape, culture and age. *update 2003: this site has grown and now includes "The Real Women Creed", stories, and music by women about body image issues
Adios, Barbie! A Body Image Site for Every Body is a site most definitely worth visiting, with good factual information on the doll many of us where raised to believe was the representation of women's beauty. This site is appropriate for all ages, from young girls who might be playing with Barbies right now and adult women who, like most women sadly, dislike their own bodies.
About-Face is a media literacy organization focused on the impact mass media has on the physical, mental and emotional well being of women and girls. Through practical and activist methods it challenges our culture's overemphasis on physical appearance, and works to engender positive body-esteem in girls and women of all ages, sizes, races and backgrounds. There are now posters available, among other resources. About-Face has been online for several years, is well-maintained, and I highly recommend it as a very unique and much-needed place on the web.
HUGS International has resources and information on non-dieting, "don't let the scale ruin your day", updated note: this site is also somewhat commercial as they do workshops and programs (the content of which I don't know much about) but the overall focus is that dieting is definitely not a means to achieving good health, so it might be worth a visit, even if you are not interested in any of their programs
The Girls, Women, and Media Project is a nonprofit networking initiative to raise awareness about the images of girls and women presented in the media, with resources on this topic, as well as the "I Can" network, which you can join via email that does activist work to protest objectionable portrayals of women in the media
Adbusters has a magazine and web site that exposes false or shady advertising. You can find some of their creative campaigns here, join in activist efforts, and order issues of the magazine
Body (i)con: Fear and Loathing in the Mirror is a graduate student's project online, on body image problems, "Icons of beauty are conning the American woman into a costly, dangerous and futile pursuit: the perfect body".
Women of Color Web has articles, bibliographies, biographical information and other resources on women of color in the United States, including Native American, African American, Asian Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and Latina/Hispanic women
Exoticize My Fist a feminist Asian American resource site, which has been online for years, offers valuable information, and has a new url updated here
Game Face Online Female Atheletes' Exhibition, "what does a female athlete look like?"
The I Am Beautiful Project wants to create a world where every woman and girl can prouldy proclaim, "I am beautiful", this site has educational and inspirational information and other resources
Size Wise is a site and a web directory of "size positive" links with a search engine, "dedicated to bringing you all the resources you need to live your life positively at any size", includes email lists and links to places where large-sized people can find clothing that fits
Reflecting Venus is a site that combats discrimination against people who are fat/overweight, by providing information in a reading list, activist resources, and a page or fat acceptance links. This is the updated URL.
Fat! So? a fat-acceptance site with many resources and a positive self-advocacy and activist outlook on body image acceptance, "for people who don't apologize for their size"
Largesse: The Network for Size Esteem an international clearinghouse of inforation for size diversity and empowerment, dedicated to creating awareness and social change which promotes positive image, health and equal rights for people of all sizes; a very large site with many resources
Eating Disorders: Information, Support, Recovery
Note (a rather long note):
If you find that any of these sites, in any way seem to be glamourizing, promoting, or sugar-coating eating disorders, or exemplifying any kind of admiration for eating disorders or the look of starved-thin bodies, please let me know and they will be removed from this page ASAP. If you don't let me know, at least, do yourself a favor and leave such a website immediately. I've tried to avoid putting any such website here, but I don't have time to look thoroughly through every site I link to this website, so it is possible some such site got through anyway.
I mention this because there is a very pathetic huge number of websites on the internet that feed into the cult of weight obsession and the myth that anorexia and bulimia nervosa are some sort of trendy, clique-ish little clubs people should aspire to be part of. Anybody who has ever seen a "pro ana" website or chat room knows what I'm talking about. Less obvious than a "pro ana" site (those directly and blatantly encourage women to be anorexic and starve themseves, and are usually created by sadly naive teenagers who haven't had the fun of being near death from anorexia yet). Less obvious than those are sites which do not admit to being sites (like so many books), that glamourize the eating disorder stereotypes and the bodies of starved women, but, nonetheless, do so, in their writing and sometimes in pictures, and in the general mileau they present to women visiting the site.
As this is NOT EXACTLY HELPFUL to ending the objectification of women's bodies in or society, feeding HEALTHY body image, and encouraging real self-esteem, I advise you to avoid such sites and, particularly to avoid them if you have an eating disorder, as (and I say this from experience), women with anorexia and/or bulimia are the people most likely to be looking at books and websites that glamourize eating disorders and go into detail about methods of starvation, and the weight of severely anorexic women and the calories and fat grams other women with eating disorders are consuming. It is a phenomenon common among women with eating disorders to seek out such infromation, not in any effort to help oneself, but as part of being in the middle of the screwed up mentality that one is in, when one has an active eating disorder running her mind. That said, I have looked at the sites below enough that I'm almost sure none of them fit into this category. However, if they do, or if any other sites you do see online fit into that type of category, or if the reason you're looking at websites on eating disorders in the first place relates to what I just described, please rethink what you are looking at, for your own good. The fat/size acceptance and positive body image sites above are there for a reason. Please look at those and not just the eating disorder sites.
Colors of Ana: a site on black women with eating disorders which is an excellent topic for a website, as there are few such sites online and few books on eating disorders which go into this topic. In contrast to the popular myth that all or most women with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa are, by nature, white and middle or upper-middle class, there are, in reality, large numbers of women with eating disorders, including many women of color, who do not fit into that long-held stereotype. These women have too often been ignored by books, organizations, individuals, and even websites that discuss eating disorders. For that reason, this website is a great treasure to have found, and I'm very happy to be adding it here.
forum
resource of its kind on the web. It has information on all types of eating disorders, consequences of eating disorders, a support forum of message boards, interactive chats sometimes sponsored by professionals who treat people with eating disorders, an instant messaging support system, tips on finding treatment, on dealing with an eating disorder, and information for family members and friends of people with eating disorders. This site (unlike so much on the web), has remained online for years and hasn't left. It's a very popular place which I still recommend, as there is a healthier attitude there as far as not discussing "numbers" (your weight, how many calories you ate today, etc) in the message board system, as opposed to many other places online where people discuss such things in detail, which is, really, not a helpful thing to do for yourself. One thing that Something Fishy lacks, in my opinion, is an adequate focus on the number of women with eating disorders who have been seriously abused and often sexually abused (that would be most of us who have or have had eating disorders). You can, however, find such information in other places.
Body Image Betrayal and Related Issues is a large site that covers eating disorders, problems that often coincide with them, and issues that often are part of their cause. This site deals with self injury, body image and eating disorders, and the topic of "therapy abuse", as well as suicidal depression. It has support systems onsite where you can talk to other people, and a connected webring of related sistes. It does not, however, focus much on the causes of body image problems in women, such as the objectification of women's bodies in a patriarchical, misogynistic society or the fact that most women with eating disorders or self-injury addictions are survivors of abuse. That said, it is a resource for support which many people may find useful, and has been online for a number of years, and remained up, unlike many such sites which have disappeared.
Payson Road: Education and Recovery for Eating Disorders is a site offering information, support, and advocacy to create awareness about eating disorders, and help people move past them using creative expression, has support groups online for people with eating disorders, a group online for families and friends of people with eating disorders, an interactive journal you can use to help with recovery, and other resources. This site's focus on providing and enouraging creative tools for women and girls with eating disorders to express themselves as a way to recover, makes it very unique.
Fight Off Your Eating Disorder one of the MSN (Microsoft Network) communities, is a support forum for people with eating disorders to chat online or use message borards, as well as being a website where one woman shares her story of battling her eating disorder and provides information for other people
Beyond the Body Betrayed is a site created by a woman recovering from anorexia and bulimia, to focus on the beauty in every woman "body and soul", with useful tools such as a list of "reasons to love your body", and things to try to help with recovery from body image problems and eating disorders
Behind the Mirror a support and recovery site for people with eating disorders, has information on eating disorders and self-injury, a message board, and links to online communities
Gurze Books specializes in publications on eating disorders and sends free catalogues of their books
National Organizations in the United States on Eating Disorders:
National Eating Disorders Association (updated) this organization was formerly known as Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention. EDAP formerly created a national eating disorders awareness week in the U.S. Their site provides educational information and activist resources. They now (under this new name) have national conferences and support research on eating disorders and continue their "media watchdog" campaign to protest the objectification of women's bodies in the media. They also have a number of other programs focused on fostering healthy body image in girls and women, and preventing eating disorders. They run a toll-free hotline providing information and referrals, 24 hours a day, at this number: 1-800-931-2237
The National Eating Disorders Coalition was founded to advance the federal recognition of eating disorders as a national health priority in the United States and does Congressional lobbying on this issue. As eating disorders are not often considered to be serious medical illnesses by insurance companies, people often cannot get adequate treatment for them, even if they are lucky enough to have good health insurance. This is (though I don't know for sure) likely one reason why his organization was founded, as it is an issue many people who do advocacy work for eating disorders' patients/victims/etc have been concerned with for some time now
The National Eating Disorders Screening Program runs every year during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week in the U.S. and holds screenings for eating disorders at various locations around the country, including many college campuses
The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness provides information on all types of eating disorders online, has speaking engagements, sends information packets via postal mail, and has some information about scholarships for treatment
Overeaters Anonymous is an international 12-step support group organization with many chapters and meetings in the United States. This is the worldwide website where you can find information about the program and where meetings are in many locations. This program is for people who are compulsive overeaters, although some people with bulimia, and some with anorexia, and other types of eating disorders also use it. This is something I personally do not recommend, however, as some people do find it helpful, the link is here for you to check it out for yourself. Please note that many OA groups revolve around a philosophy that following their particular food program is the way to recovery. This is actually following another food regimine, daily, much like what people with anorexia nervosa already do every day of their lives, and it does not bring freedom to eat normally like other people. I find this to be a ridiculously counterproductive idea, and something that people should be very wary of. That's the end of the personal commentary.
Organizations Outside the U.S. on Eating Disorders:
