Answering questions girls are embarrassed to ask

A few weeks ago, after I wrote a post about Tyra Banks’ show featuring a vulva puppet, I received an e-mail from a woman named Nancy Redd. She was happy to have seen the post, she said, but also wanted to let me know that there would soon be less of a need for vulva puppets because she was about to come out with a book called “Body Drama” that, as she put it, featured photos of “boobs, vaginas, and everything in between.” Lest that sound weird, I should point out that “Body Drama” is a “photographic body, health and self-esteem book for young women.” Redd, who’s a 26-year-old Harvard graduate and former Miss Virginia, wanted to write a book that would help teenage girls find answers to the questions they had about their own bodies (e.g., Why do I sweat so much? Why is one breast bigger than the other? My vagina smells — what’s going on?) — not to mention provide photographs of real (as opposed to airbrushed) photographs of female bodies — and provide some solid health advice. Because, as Redd herself puts it in the book’s introduction, “our educational system spends millions of dollars creating detailed health programs, but those programs skip over the basic ABCs of basic body smarts. We’ve been so focused (and understandably so) on sexual education that we’ve completely ignored body education … How can we respect and protect our bodies if we don’t know what real bodies look like? If we can hardly utter the word vagina, much less peek at it without feeling dirty, how can we own and love it and ourselves?”
I don’t know about you all, but when I hit puberty and my mom slipped me a copy of “What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Girls,” I was so fascinated that I read it cover to cover, but was so embarrassed by the entire concept of puberty that I slipped it inside a magazine so that my parents couldn’t see what I was looking at. (I’m not kidding — I treated it as if it were porn.) I would have loved to have a book, written by someone who presumably is completely confident about her own body (she won the swimsuit competition, after all), that addressed all the questions I had about my changing body.
“Body Drama” isn’t coming out till Dec. 27, but if you’re holiday shopping, you can still preorder it. If I had a young teenage girl in my life, this would be at the top of my list of gifts for her — especially if her copy of Cricket magazine had suddenly developed a mysterious bulge.

by Catherine Price of Broadsheet

Click Here to read the actual article!

Tagged as Book Reviews

Be the First to Comment

Facebook del.icio.us Digg Reddit Google StumbleUpon

 Print This Post
 Email This Post

As I say on page 210 on Body Drama, it’s easy to come up with reasons not to exercise or eat healthily, and being unable to afford expensive health food or a gym membership are common excuses. As you’ll find out in Body Drama, a lack of money is absolutely no excuse for you to not start eating right and working out if you’re out of shape! Here are some free (or pretty close to free) activities and dishes to get yourself in tip-top shape.

Free Ways to Burn Calories

• Playing soccer for one hour burns 390 calories
• Playing basketball for 45 minutes burns 341 calories
• Swimming laps for 30 minutes burns 292 calories
• Dancing at a party for 45 minutes burns 244 calories
• Washing your car for an hour burns 227 calories
• Gardening for 45 minutes burns 195 calories
• Shoveling snow for 30 minutes burns 162 calories
• Pushing a cart through the grocery store for an hour burns 162 calories
• Climbing stairs for 20 minutes burns 152 calories
• Walking your dog for 45 minutes burns 122 calories, jogging with your dog burns 244 calories in the same amount of time
• Jumping rope for 12 minutes burns 117 calories
• Mopping your floors and vacuuming your house for 30 minutes burns 114 calories
• Lifting weights and doing pushups and abdominal crunches for 20 minutes burns 100 calories (Tip: if you don’t own weights, try using 5lb. bags of sugar and/or flour. Also check out page 217 of Body Drama to find out how to properly crunch.)
• Walking and knocking on doors in your neighborhood to raise money/awareness for a cause for 45 minutes burns 97 calories

As you can see, there are a variety of activities that you can enjoy every day to stay healthy. Some exercises burn more calories per minute than others, but other activities are beneficial in more ways than just your physical health, like walking through your neighborhood for your favorite cause or washing cars all day for a school fundraiser. These types of socially responsible activities help you improve yourself in more ways than one!

After all of that hard work, you don’t want to blow your burned calories with unhealthy foods. Check out these easy, healthy, and inexpensive recipes to keep the momentum going:

Cheap and Healthy Recipes

Omelet with Onions and Peppers

• Ingredients: 2 eggs (or 3 egg whites), ½ green pepper (chopped), 1/4 onion (chopped), 1 tablespoon olive oil, non-stick cooking spray, salt and pepper
• Directions: Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add chopped green pepper and onion to skillet and sauté until onions become opaque (the fancy word for see-through). Remove peppers and onions from skillet and set aside for later. In a bowl, thoroughly whisk eggs (or egg whites) with a pinch of salt and pepper and one tablespoon of water. Set aside. Spray the skillet with non-stick cooking spray and raise the stove temperature to medium high. Once the skillet is hot, pour in the whisked egg mixture and reduce heat to medium. When the egg mixture is almost set, evenly sprinkle the cooked peppers and onions over the eggs. Using a spatula, flip one side of the egg mixture to fold it in half, and remove from skillet onto a plate.
• Cost Per Serving: approximately 80 cents to $1
• Calories: 277 (196 if using egg whites)

Green Beans & Almonds

• Ingredients:1 cup fresh green beans, 3 tablespoons chopped almonds (sliced, slivered, or chopped), 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
• Directions: Heat skillet on medium high. Add almonds, stirring frequently until golden brown. Remove almonds and set aside. Add olive oil to skillet. When oil is hot, add green beans to skillet and toss them around until evenly coated with the olive oil. Lower heat to medium and cover. After five minutes, add almonds back to skillet, add salt and pepper to taste, toss, and cover again for three to four more minutes. Remove green beans from skillet and place into a bowl.
• Cost Per Serving: approximately 60 cents to $1
• Calories: 225

Sweet Sweet Potatoes

• Ingredients:1 sweet potato, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon artificial sweetener (or brown sugar), 10 miniature marshmallows
• Directions: Wrap the washed sweet potato in aluminum foil and bake in oven at 425 degrees for an hour. Remove with oven mitt, squeezing potato to ensure softness. If it doesn’t feel soft when squeezing it through the mitt and foil, return sweet potato to oven for another fifteen minutes. Let cool for ten minutes, and then, with a knife, slice the potato down the center, exposing its orange flesh. Insert artificial sweetener or sugar, as well as the cinnamon, and mix everything well without destroying the sweet potato’s skin. Place marshmallows inside the sweet potato and place potato back onto baking tray. Bake for ten more minutes, then serve and enjoy.
• Cost Per Serving: approximately $1
• Calories: 130 (150 if using brown sugar)

Whipped Sugar-Free Gelatin

• Ingredients: 1 Package of Sugar-Free Gelatin, Fat-Free Whipped Cream
• Directions: Follow package directions to make and chill gelatin in an oversized bowl. Once set, cut into 2-inch chunks and add 1 cup of fat-free whipped cream to bowl. Mix thoroughly and return to fridge for at least 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy.
• Cost Per Serving: 30 to 75 cents
• Calories: 20

(All calorie counts come from www.fitday.com)

Have some more exercise ideas or healthy recipes that you’d like to share? Contact me and I’ll include them and give you the credit!

Tagged as Book Extras

Comments (1)

Facebook del.icio.us Digg Reddit Google StumbleUpon

 Print This Post
 Email This Post

Smoking is one of the very worst things you can do to your body, both for your internal health and your physical appearance. If you’re a smoker, you’re not alone – 3,000 teenagers start smoking each day, according to the American Cancer Society. I talk about the many reasons why one shouldn’t smoke on page 193 of Body Drama, but here are a few tips for quitting for anyone who has unfortunately picked up the habit already.

Tips for Quitting Smoking

1) Get Support. Quitting smoking is difficult to do alone, especially if you have friends who smoke. See if one of your smoker friends is interested in quitting with you so that you can be accountable to each other. If none of your friends want to quit smoking with you, ask one of your friends who does not smoke to hold you accountable by asking you each day about how you feel and the progress you’ve made. Also, when you’re trying to quit, hang out with your non-smoking friends more, especially in the beginning stages. It’s much easier to crush cravings if you aren’t surrounded by temptation!
2) Call Before You Cave. We’re not perfect, so our attempts to better ourselves aren’t always going to go perfectly, either. It’s perfectly natural to want to cave in to cravings when you’re trying to quit smoking, but always try to reach out to someone before you reach for a cigarette. Oftentimes, you can relieve a lot of the anxiety and stress that you think a cigarette would relieve just by talking. If you feel uncomfortable talking with your quit buddy or other friends, call the American Cancer Society’s toll-free Quitline at 1-877-YES-QUIT anytime to speak to someone anonymously and to receive a free kit to help you curb cravings.
3) Talk to Your Doctor. Not only is it important to tell your doctor (or your school nurse) about your smoking history so she can best take care of your needs, because your doctor should know a lot about your level of physical fitness and what medications you are on, your doctor can also talk with you about best options for your journey towards being smoke-free. Sometimes, over-the-counter or prescription smoking cessation (the fancy word for stopping) aids may be recommended by your doctor.
4) Keep Your Mouth Busy. Find out what works best for you to keep your mouth busy when you get the urge to smoke – gum, ice, and hard candy are popular choices. By the time the flavor is gone or the ice melts, the craving will hopefully leave, too.
5) Get Back on the Bandwagon. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! If you go three days without smoking and then slip up and smoke after an argument with your mom wrecks your nerves, don’t give up and start chain smoking again! Be proud of the small victories, like making it three days without smoking in the first place. Get right back into the swing of things and keep on working hard towards your goal of being smoke-free.

Check out the American Cancer Society’s Guide to Quitting Smoking for more reasons why to quit, tips on how to quit, and support to help you quit.

Good Luck! I know you can do it!

Tagged as Book Extras

Be the First to Comment

Facebook del.icio.us Digg Reddit Google StumbleUpon

 Print This Post
 Email This Post

”I love this book! It puts loving (and knowing) your body into words and pictures — you’ll find out yours isn’t so different after all. Body Drama has the answers you want to the questions you don’t know how to ask. Fun and frank, like talking to a good friend who knows absolutely everything and is willing to dish.”
Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women (NOW)

“This honest, funny, and lucidly-written book is the perfect antidote to a culture constantly teaching young women to angst about their bodies. This liberating call speaks directly to the worries and concerns that most of us have, offering a perspective and solutions that will help girls and young women figure out what REALLY matters to them. And maybe the world will be that much saner as a result.”
Judy Norsigian, Executive Director of Our Bodies Ourselves and co-author of “Our Bodies, Ourselves”

“Body Drama…should be on the shelf of every family, school, and doctor in America.”
Nancy Brown, PhD, professor of Adolescent Sexuality at Stanford University, senior research associate at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) Research Institute.

“This generation of young girls has been raised in an especially casual, sexualized world and anything short of down and dirty would get tossed in the trash. Redd delivers a lot of great information for girls about what it’s like to live in their female bodies, and how to inhabit it with pride and care. When I first got Body Drama I called my sister. She’s a school nurse and all-around girl power, rock-star and I wanted her to know about it. We both agreed it’s a must-have for school health offices.”
— Alli Decker for Ypulse.com, the source for daily news and commentary on Generation Y for media and marketing professionals

“Today’s girls need body role models. They need real images…they need reality checks and reassurance. They need this book. By proudly presenting what real women actually look like and what women’s bodies naturally go through, Body Drama takes a major stride toward eradicating the dislike and embarrassment that women have learned to feel about their bodies. Groundbreaking!”
from the foreword by Dr. Angela Diaz, director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, which is the largest health center for adolescents in America

Tagged as Press

Be the First to Comment

Facebook del.icio.us Digg Reddit Google StumbleUpon

 Print This Post
 Email This Post

“Since I started this job of reviewing about a year and a half ago, I’ve had the privilege of reading a number of self-help type books geared towards girls and women and their bodies. I have to admit that none have been as comprehensive, helpful, and realistic as Body Drama. As an adult, and a married woman with two children, I still found this book to be extremely helpful, and even discovered information that I hadn’t previously known. Kudos to Ms. Redd for such an informative read. This one is a winner!”
Jennifer Wardrip of TeensReadToo.com

Tagged as Press

Be the First to Comment

Facebook del.icio.us Digg Reddit Google StumbleUpon

 Print This Post
 Email This Post