You Can’t Judge a Body by Its Cover — New Book by David Bedrick Offers Crucial Psychosocial Insights for Understanding People Beyond the Obvious — review by Fannie LeFlore, posted December 1, 2020

In his new book on women, dieting and body image, Psychotherapist David Bedrick captures the literal and metaphorical realities of what happens when people feel forced to deny or hide from their true selves in order to gain acceptance by others. When unrealistic expectations of perfection intrude and weight is used to determine someone’s worth, the unspoken dynamics of advertised messages reveal just how much women are conditioned to shrink due to social pressures. When women have a need to grow emotionally beyond approval-seeking but being authentic still results in relational difficulties, many feel pressured to ignore their internal guidance or compromise their own self-esteem and overall well-being. Yet, given the reality that diets often set people up for self-loathing and many feel hungrier for something more while attempting to cut calories, it begs the question of what is really going on.

David Bedrick takes us there — by looking beyond the surface of things in You Can’t Judge a Body by Its Cover. Since 2008, he has collected case studies that inform insights he shares on how body shame, hunger, weight-loss and their connections to sexism, racism and abuse, affect the ability of women to feel good enough about themselves to allow their…