You’d Be Pretty If …
Dara Chadwick
Reviewed by Irene S. Roth
Rating: 5 Roses

Chadwick’s book is about a very important
topic: how we can help our daughters accept their
bodies, even if we don’t have a perfect body
ourselves. What a wonderful and empowering
message to give adolescent girls and their
mothers.

When I started reading the book, I couldn’t put
it down until I read it from cover to cover. I
found Chadwick’s approach of the subject very
honest and forthright. I wish every adolescent
girl and mother could read this book. It would
really help to strengthen their relations with
each other.

The dominant themes and ideas in the media
reinforce the notions of beauty and health as
super thinness. In fact, if you’re not thin,
you’re not healthy. But this attitude is far from
right. In fact, it has created a neurosis among
women in our society that has been passed on from
generation to generation. Somehow, women always
feel that they aren’t thin enough or beautiful
enough. They look for any kind of outside
approval to validate themselves. And this
precisely where we all go wrong.

Beauty is based on our internal barometers of
ourselves much more than an external assessment
by others. Beauty is based on self-love and
self-acceptance, and it should have very little
to do with what society says about us or how we
should ‘ideally’ look.

We are deeply influenced by our mothers. It
would be great if mothers would simply show their
daughters unconditional love and acceptance,
regardless of how thin they are. It would also be
wonderful if mothers would show girls how shallow
and fickle the media is and that they should not
allow their self-esteem and self-love to be
victimized by the media.

We all need to help our daughters love
themselves more. Perhaps by taking a few small
steps towards showing them the importance of
self-love and self-acceptance, mothers can take
that first small step towards stopping the cycle
of self-hated that has been ravaging our
adolescent girls for a long time.