The Famine Within

An exploration of the contemporary obsession with body size and shape among North American women. Under the coercive powers of consumerism and the mass media, women have come to view their bodies as marketable objects and to judge them according to the unrealistic standards of the beauty ideal. Paradoxically, this anxious quest for "the perfect body" is going on precisely at the point where women face serious challenges of self-definition as they orientate themselves within the world of work outside the home. Using a strong and dramatic visual approach, the work explores the complex knot of causes that lies at the heart of this paradox. Combining the testimony of many women who have suffered from the body obsession with the views of leading experts, this work explores the kind of hunger that cannot be satisfied by food.