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Sex Roles (2008) 59:292293 DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9399-1
BOOK REVIEW
Body Image Dissatisfaction: Normative Discontent?
Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women, and Children, revised edition, by Sarah Grogan, New York, Routledge, 2007. 250 pp. $33.95 (paperback). ISBN-10: 0415358213
Heather Littleton
Published online: 26 February 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
It has been stated that negative body image can be considered a normative discontent among individuals, particularly women, in Western societies (Cash and Henry 1995). Research into body image has increased dramatically in recent years. Indeed, in 2004 the journal Body Image was founded to publish articles exclusively on this topic and received over 120 submissions in its first year (Cash 2005). Given the volume of research being conducted in this area, it seems necessary then that an updated version of the 1999 book Body Image: Understanding Body Image Dissatisfaction in Men, Women, and Children by body image expert Sarah Grogan be published.
The revised edition of Body Image is structured similarly to the first edition with chapters focusing on body image ideals in Western culture, body image among women, men, and children, the media and body image, and body image and diversity. The revised edition also includes a chapter discussing factors associated with positive body image and promotion of positive body image. The book is presented in a very accessible style and includes a number of photographs, depictions of figural rating scales, and excerpts from qualitative research. Each of these serve to enhance the text presented. The book would be a useful text for an undergraduate course on body image, psychology of gender, or gender studies.
While Grogan acknowledges that body image includes evaluative, affective, cognitive, and behavioral components, the book focuses almost exclusively on the evaluative component of body (dis)satisfaction. The book begins with a brief historical overview of body image ideals in Western
culture and discussion of the current slender ideal for females and the slim and muscular ideal for men. Grogan deconstructs the notion that the current body image ideal necessarily represents a healthy body, particularly for women She highlights the variability in...