Dara Chadwick has an unusual story to tell. After gaining 15 kilograms following the birth of her children, she won a competition to write a weight-loss diary column for one year for Shape, a women’s fitness magazine with more than 1.5 million readers. She also wrote a twice-weekly blog and corresponded with other mothers. She discovered there is a question that plagues mothers everywhere: If I hate my body, how can I teach my daughter to like hers?

In this heartfelt and down-to-earth book, Dara Chadwick offers a pathway towards a solution. Using real stories from other mothers, as well as her experiences with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Chadwick helps women become aware of the negative body-image messages they are unconsciously passing on to their daughters. She shows how to talk about healthy eating and exercise habits, recognise the trigger words that can set off a body-image crisis, and be aware of the early signs that may lead to an eating disorder.

Dara writes: ‘I have learnt that how I treat my body today – what I choose to feed it, how I choose to make it work, how I dress it and perhaps most important, how I talk about it – has a profound effect on how my daughter will treat her own body tomorrow.’

With humour and compassion, Her Mother’s Thighs offers parents ways for helping their daughters see that success and happiness are not linked to the shape of their bodies.

‘Essential reading for every mother of a daughter. It’s not just about what we say to our girls but what they see and hear us doing that forms the basis of their body image.’ - Mia Freedman, author and columnist

‘Obsessing about our bodies is a waste of time and a bad habit. The message in this book is about how NOT to pass on this legacy.’ - Angela Catterns, broadcaster

‘It’s one thing to want to raise daughters with a healthy body image and another to know how to do it ... Dara Chadwick successfully shows us that if we understand the effect that our mother’s poor body image had on us, we can break the cycle and teach our daughters to love their bodies.’ – Jo Lamble, Clinical Psychologist, mother and coauthor of Motherhood

About the Author

Dara Chadwick, a journalist and a former magazine editor, lives in Rhode Island, USA.

Specifications

Publication June 2009
RRP $26.95
Trade Paperback 256pp
ISBN 9781921462061