When I was pregnant I dreamed about having a daughter. And I kinda freaked. How could I possibly raise a strong women-child in this body obsessed world when most days I loathe my body? How long could I fake it so she doesn't pick up on my body hate? Well the Goddess did send me a woman-child who not only looks JUST like me but her favorite thing to do with me is to squeeze my belly fat. OK she likes to do that with everyone, but she also adds in "Mommy's the squishiest!"

You'd Be So Pretty If...Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies - Even When We Don't Love Our Own by Dara Chadwick tackles just this issue. This was a painful book to read but I loved it.

Chadwick grounds her book in exploring how women learn to criticize our bodies from media, but especially from our own moms. Chadwick's mom had a saying, "If you think you're fat, you probably are." By the end of the book Chadwick reinterprets that saying to mean that we are in control of how we feel about our body.

The journey thou is hard, but one that I believe all moms of daughters should take. There's a chapter in there for dads and brothers as well. Chadwick starts us off with the idea that as moms we create a "body image blueprint" for our grrls. "As mothers, how we feel about and relate to our own bodies - and the conscious or unconscious expression of that relationship - creates a "body image blueprint" for our daughters." It's pretty obvious once we start to think about it, isn't it? Stop and think about what you learned about your body from your mom.

And I love that Chadwick included "the talk" in her book. She links our developing bodies to our sexuality or perceived sexuality because grrls bodies are going thru puberty, evolving to our eventual woman form and with that adding weight.

I can't say enough how I hope that every mom out there reads this book. You might even find a way to love your body more, forgive your mom for how she programmed you or just know that you really are impacting your daughter with jokes about your body. Chadwick also gives you some good points on how to talk to the men in your lives (Dads & brothers) on how their boy behavior is not going over as "just a joke" to your 13-year-old daughter and to stop.

The book loosely chronicles Chadwick’s own journey to a healthier body and lifestyle through a Shape magazine “body transformation” project. Upon being chosen for the Shape project, Chadwick realized she had a quite a challenge on her hands…weight loss, diet, exercise, lifestlye change, dealing with personal body image, and the most important challenge, which is what the book strongly outlines, is how she uses the project to teach her eleven year old daughter about body image. “I agononized over the effect that the project was having on my daughter.” Chadwick writes. “I worried that seeing me obsess about calories and gym time and body fat numbers would teach my daughter that this is normal female behavior. Would she think that if this is what Mom worries about, she should worry about it too?”

Thus begins the 225 page book about how a woman’s body image effects her daughter. Chadwick cites many sources throughout her book—medical professionals, mental health experts, studies, research findings, but the most influential source she uses are the personal quips, quotes, stories, and advice from “regular” moms and daughters. These real life examples and experiences show a true in depth look at how young girls see the world, giving mothers (or any woman in the role of…well, role model) a little more insight about how to positively effect a young girls body image. ( )