Societal norms have placed large burdens on how women perceive themselves, and how they want others to perceive them. This has led to some distressing statistics, with up to 10 percent of college-aged women in the United States suffering from an eating disorder. While individual women can focus on cultivating a healthy body image, it is important for young women to analyze how the media and others encourage unhealthy perceptions of what women's bodies are supposed to look like. A glossary, a "For More Information" section, and additional avenues of research are provided to guide readers to better understand the importance of a healthy female body image.

The purpose of this study was to explore how African American women think and feel about their bodies. Specifically, this study examined how Black women define beauty by means of variables such as body shape, skin complexion, and hair texture; whether African American women ages 18-30 compared themselves to media images; and if so, did comparison to these media images impact African American women's body satisfaction. In addition, this study explored if African American women felt pressure to adopt beauty standards attributed to the dominant culture, as well as the role of racial identity in forming beauty standards and social comparison behavior. Twelve African American women were interviewed and findings of this exploratory research illustrated that the Black community has different standards than the traditional beauty standards of the U.S. Even though interviewees articulated standards of beauty for women in the Black community, there was a lack of uniformity in how these women felt about their own attractiveness: some identified with the Black beauty standards, while others did not. In addition, opinions varied regarding Black women's engagement in social comparison behavior and whether it was related to racial identity or body satisfaction. Limitations of study included: how Black women define social comparison behavior and racial identity, self-identification of participants, and the lack of Caucasian women included in this study. However, this research still provided rich data exploring Black women's perceptions of beauty among other issues within the Black community. Future research is required to better understand influences shaping standards of beauty within this subculture of the United States and recommendations are provided in the last chapter.

Experimental psychology formulates and resolves research questions about 'body image' in terms of the pathology of particular women. What it does not focus on, however, are the discursive practices at work in its own assumptions.

The Media and Body Image draws together literature from sociology, gender studies, and psychology; brings together new empirical work on both media representations and audience responses; and offers a broad discussion of this topic in the context of socio-cultural change, gender politics, and self-identity.

The current study was conducted to determine if differences between Caucasian and African American women's self-esteem; body image satisfaction, and self- perception relative to body mass index scores (BMI) would disappear when SES, and urbanicity are taken into consideration. Sixty-five Caucasian and 47 African American female students from a midsize university in East Texas volunteered to participate in the study. All volunteers were unmarried and ranged in age from 18 to 25 years. Participants completed several measures: The Multidimensional Body Self-Relations Questionnaire (Cash, 2000a) and Body-image Questionnaire (Cash, 2000b), Self-Perception Profile for College Students (Neeman & Harter, 1986), Hollingshead Four Factor Index of Social Status, and a demographic data sheet. Participants' actual weight, ideal weight, and height were obtained in order to compute their BMI. For the most part, the study hypotheses were supported. Specifically, African Americans reported greater scores in the majority of domains of self-esteem, body image satisfaction, and self-perception than their Caucasian counterparts. However, when SES and urbanicity were introduced as covariates, these differences disappeared for a large number of domains. Implications for future research and possible application of these findings are discussed.

"Describes the causes and consequences of a negative body image, and suggests ways to overcome this self-perception."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a baffling, troubling, and hard to treat phenomenon that has increased markedly in recent years. Key issues in diagnosing and treating NSSI adequately include differentiating it from attempted suicide and other mental disorders, as well as understanding the motivations for self-injury and the context in which it occurs. This accessible and practical book provides therapists and students with a clear understanding of these key issues, as well as of suitable assessment techniques. It then goes on to delineate research-informed treatment approaches for NSSI, with an emphasis on functional assessment, emotion regulation, and problem solving, including motivational interviewing, interpersonal skills, CBT, DBT, behavioral management strategies, delay behaviors, exercise, family therapy, risk management, and medication, as well as how to successfully combine methods.