?The average American woman is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 163 pounds. Most runway models stand 5 feet 10 or 5 feet 11 inches tall. They average 120 to 124 pounds,? writes Nancy Amanda Redd, author of the book, ?Body Drama: Real Girls, Real Bodies, Real Issues, Real Answers.?
?Body Drama? is a shockingly honest and bold book that covers every imaginable topic concerning women?s bodies. It is an adult version of ?The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls,? the American Girl book about entering puberty.
Most notably, ?Body Drama? has hundreds of photos of real women of every size and color, with stretch marks, muffin tops, acne and dirt under their nails. The 24 models featured have normal bodies, standing in stark contrast to the retouched, unhealthy images that are seen every day on billboards, in magazines and on television.
?The bodies in ?Body Drama? are joyous and comfortable and proud,? said Redd in a January interview with USA Today. ?They serve as a reality check for stressed-out girls who compare themselves to the airbrushed, surgically enhanced and sexualized nudity that is everywhere else. Shying away from using real women’s bodies is exactly what has caused the bodily shame that girls and women face today.?
While the graphic photos will make some uncomfortable, this book may offer the readers a rare frank view of another woman?s actual body, considerably more educational than penciled health class diagrams.
?Today?s young women need real images ? not misleading illustrations and medical jargon,? Doctor Angela Diaz writes in the book?s forward. ?They need reality checks and reassurance.?
Diaz, the medical consultant for ?Body Drama,? has encountered just about every medical dilemma in her 25 years of working with young people at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, a volunteer teaching hospital in New York City. The book draws on her expertise and Redd?s experience as it refuses to shy away from any topic.
The five chapters of the book ? ?Skin,? ?Boobs,? ?Down There,? ?Hair & Nails? and ?Shape? ? each deal with about 10 ?dramas? by answering the questions, ?What?s Going On??, ?How Do I Deal?? and ?What If They Notice?? Common complaints include: ?My thighs look like cottage cheese. I go poo too much or not enough. My teeth aren?t white. I feel fat.? These are just a few of the dramas that Redd delves into. Her advice is intellectual, useful and straightforward while managing to remain witty and easy to follow. In this way, ?Body Drama? answers questions and busts myths that readers have thought about but have had no one to ask.
?I have never seen anybody write so candidly about things that we all experience but we don?t talk about,? said Gayle King during a January interview with Redd on the Oprah & Friends XM radio station.
Redd graduated from Harvard University in 2003 with a degree in women?s studies. She went on to become Miss Virginia in 2003 and was in the Top 10 at the Miss America Pageant in 2004. Despite her high profile, Redd admits to her own body dramas. Throughout the book, which has an easy-to-read, magazine-like layout, there are highlighted sections where Redd confesses her own insecurities and mistakes.
?(In spite of being Miss Virginia), I still had a whole bunch of body junk going on, so I figured, wow, if I?m dealing with this, then we just need to get this all out in the open,? Redd said in the interview with King.
?Body Drama? and its big-sisterly advice is enlightening and uplifting, a must-read for women of all ages.
