What Are You Hungry For?: Women, Food, and Spirituality

by Lynn Ginsburg, Mary Taylor, Mary Taylor, et al.

Book Overview

Women have many secrets. But a woman's secret relationship with food and her body can overshadow other aspects of her life, filling her with obsession, shame and fear. Many women waste countless years focusing on food and appearance, rather than spending energy on what holds deepest meaning for them in life.

In What Are You Hungry For? authors Taylor and Ginsburg show how obsessive dieting, a distorted body image and eating disorders...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312310137
• ISBN13: 9780312310134
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Re-define beauty

It's time for a new manifesto and a new definition of beauty and liberation. We propose that the ultimate goal for women today is achieving true happiness, and that it doesn't come from surface fullfillment...If we're free on the outside while still trapped inside, believing that life is worthwhile only if we're slim and beautiful, then what's the point? Until women are free to be themselves-each a whole person with an inside and an outside-they will never feel truly liberated or truly beautiful. --From the back of dust jacket

A real winner An eye opener

'Accompanying this underlying sense of suffering is a feeling of emptiness. We feel something missing. Inside if us is a void, a longing deep within for some elusive satisfaction. This empty feeling is often experienced physically as gnawing hunger, as if we have a bottomless hole inside. If we fill this void, we must start by asking: what is the source of this feeling of emptiness? For so many women its a longing for spiritual fulfillment that leaves us always hungry and dissatisfied--- We define spirituality as a belief in that which goes beyond our material, corporeal existence, giving us faith that there's more to life than everyday experience. Spirituality is a faith in God, Nature, a higher consciousness, or any other power greater than our singular mortal existence --- When we've lost a spiritual connection in our lives, we may eat and eat in an attempt to fill our inner world. But satisfaction comes only when we're able to rediscover our connection to whatever holds deepest meaning for us'.This part on page 5 is what grabbed my attention and was a light bulb moment. The only clarification I would make is where she writes 'Spirituality is a faith in God, Nature, a higher consciousness, or any other power greater than our singular mortal existence'. I would have noted any positive God, higher consciousness or power per se, since I think like has yin yang, sun moon, good bad equals or opposites.I like how the author seeks to educate western women or American women on how and why women in other areas of the world do not have the obesity or eating disorder issues American women have. Like on page 7 'Traditional Western diets fail to resolve the food body conflict because they don't deal with the root cause'. Page 13 'Growing up in Western society, we're programmed to believe that every problem has a quick and easy solution. Have a headache? Take an aspirin. Coughing? Take a cough suppressant. Feel over weight? Go on a diet. Problem solved.' Of course Americans want it 'now' They want throw away diapers, fast food, and a remote control that changes the channel before you even know what is on.Beginning on page 101 she shares some easy to do yoga exercises that I have found really do help energize me as well as relax me. More relaxed and energized I am the less interested in between meal eating. I also like her section on page 154 on the importance on becoming still and thankful BEFORE one eats. Some call it saying grace, I call it simply giving thanks and reflecting on the hands that created and brought the food to my plate. I also like how the author reminds the reader that one eating schedule doesn't fit all. I have learned that five small meals per day are best for me, whereas a friend of mine finds two larger healthy meals with two snacks mid morning and mid afternoon work best. And as the author notes on page 158 'a balanced meal is one that fosters good health'.And finally a reminder in Chapter Ten that 'You are a work in progress'

There is hope out there.....

"What Are You Hungry For: Women, Food, and Spirituality" is a true milestone. In a culture that seems to struggle daily with unhealthy, mixed messages, that cloud the perception of women and keep us from being all that we can be, this book cuts through the mire and offers us solutions to our own mental traps. Lynn Ginsburg and Mary Taylor don't merely stay in the "talking at you" mode either. they offer things that you can actually do - practical solutions if you will - that will gradually help undo unhealthy body image problems that many of us struggle with. It is worth noting too, that while the authors are quite serious about their subject, with good reason, they do not get bogged down by taking themselves too seriously. they are wry, witty, and in the process, quite wise. I highly recommend this book. It is certainly refreshing and altogether different than anything else that has been written on the subject of women and body image. It's a must have for women of all ages.

What Are You Hungry For?

What Are You Hungry for? is a must on every womans bookshelf! Like every woman I know, I have experienced food /body issues. By opening the door to a spiritual healing ,Taylor and Ginsburg give me hope for a healthier future for myself and others. In following the body/mind exercises ,I am able to begin understanding my habitual patterns.As a result,I am changing a life time of unhealthy food /body patterns. As a mother of two; one being a daughter, I find What Are You Hungry For? ,invaluable for the future generation of women in America.Bravo!!

What Are You Hungry For? provides real solutions!

I am thrilled to finally have read a book that examines the root causes of women's food and body issues in terms that I recognize. Finally I feel that I've read a book about what's REALLY happening in my mind as I struggle with dieting and self-image. What Are You Hungry For? closely examines the thoughts and beliefs that shroud women's perceptions of themselves. But the best part is that the book also provides easy, sound, step-by-step exercises with which to alter those perceptions and actually change your behavior, and ultimately your life!