Based on Dr. Robyn Silverman's groundbreaking research at Tufts University, and filled with searingly honest young voices, Good Girls Don't Get Fat : – Decodes the ripple effects of actions that damage our girls—and provides tools to help stop them. – Shines light on the positive influence of women who embrace body types of any size—and explains how to model the right behavior. – Shows how girls, whatever their size, can own their strengths, trust their power and accomplish amazing things. ROBYN J.A. SILVERMAN, PhD, is a leading expert in body and self-esteem development who appears regularly on national television and radio, including The Tyra Banks Show, Fox & Friends, Nightline and NPR. An award-winning columnist and writer, she lives in New Jersey with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.DrRobynSilverman.com. Two summers ago, it got personal. I was sitting at the hair salon, my infant daughter, Tallie, gurgling beside me in her stroller, when a middle-aged woman with wavy blond hair ambled over, peered into the stroller and, with wrinkles creasing around her eyes, exclaimed, "Oh, look at her!" I've always been used to people—strangers—making a fuss over Tallie. Even at five months old, she was quite engaging. But before I could smile or utter a proud "Thank you," the woman continued effusively, "Look at those fat thighs! Me, oh my! Enjoy it now, honey. It's the only time fat is cute." Then she laughed, and a woman nearby nodded in agreement. I was thinking, of course, that the woman was an idiot. Not malicious. Just clueless. As far as I was concerned, she may as well have said, "Fat is bad, bad little girl, and you'd better learn it now!" Taken aback, I simply responded, "She's a really healthy baby and doing well! We're so glad." I wish I had said more before she smiled and continued on her way, with absolutely no recognition that what she had said was the least bit offensive. Fat-bashing in all its varied forms—criticism, exclusion, shaming, fat talk, self-deprecation, jokes, gossip, bullying—is one of the last acceptable forms of prejudice. From a very young age, before they can walk away or defend themselves, women are taught that they are how they look, not what they do or what they know. Drawing attention to a woman's "assets" is usually the stuff of tabloid fodder, accompanied with a compulsory snicker or "wink, wink." Butt. Boobs. Legs. Think Betty Grable famously insuring her legs for a cool million, or the more current Mariah Carey upping the ante to a whopping $1 billion. The message is clear: A girl's body, stripped down to its "perfect" parts, slapped with price tags, carries a higher value than anything else she possesses. Our daughters—with their beautiful, developing selves— watch closely from the sidelines and peer into their mirrors with derision, wondering, "Am I acceptable the way I am?" A November 2009 poll conducted by Girlguiding, a scouting association in the United Kingdom, found that an alarming 95 percent of girls ages sixteen to twenty-one want to change their bodies in some way, with portions of the group already expressing interest in cosmetic procedures. (A similar poll conducted by the Girl Scouts of America in 2006 reported that two-thirds of girls were not very satisfied with their weight.) When girls believe that "fat" is bad, they internalize that message and think, "If I'm fat—if I have fat—I must be bad, too." And they'll do whatever they can to be "good." Plastic surgery. Extreme dieting. Overexercising. It's not an idea they grow out of. On the contrary, they grow into it. But it's not just the physicality of being overweight. Ask almost any girl to do a word association for the word fat, and she'll likely give you a deplorable laundry list of connotative insults: ugly, lazy, gross, stupid, nasty, unpopular, smelly, blameworthy and, of course, bad. Play the same game with thin, and you'll get its virginal opposites: beautiful, successful, sexy, smart, sophisticated, controlled, well-liked and good. In 2003, I created the Sassy Sisterhood Girls Circle for girls ages nine to fourteen, an ongoing workshop/coaching series that explores issues affecting body esteem and self-image, and the girls tell me that these hidden definitions color every aspect of their lives. Every year, on one of the first days of group, I ask them to close their eyes and raise their hand if they sometimes feel "too fat" or "not thin enough." And every year, after shifting for a few moments in their seats, they all raise their hands. At first, the exercise alarmed me. The enemy—regardless of weight or body type—felt so undefined and omnipresent. But with the help of my Sassy Girls, I compiled a "flawed" belief system, a fixed and coherent set of erroneous guiding principles, based on the commonality of their experiences in order to fully understand the harmful messages they'd picked up and what we were up against. I now use this as a launching pad for discus