I’m pleased to present a guest post by Sarah Maria, author of the soon-to-be-released book Love Your Body, Love Your Life: 5 Steps to End Negative Body Obsession and Start Living Happily and Confidently.
Sarah is the founder of Break Free Beauty, a company dedicated to helping people love their bodies as they are. She speaks and writes on body image, self-esteem, health, success and spirituality. Sarah’s new book will be available on November 1.

Go Ahead and Pamper Yourself
By Sarah Maria
Gone are the days when self-pampering was considered overly-indulgent, self-aggrandizing or narcissistic, right? Well, if those days aren’t quite gone …read more

A recent study from a team at the University of Washington found new links between alcohol abuse, depression and obesity in young women.
Specifically, the study of 776 young adults found that females with an alcohol problem at age 24 were more than three times as likely to be obese at 27. The study also found that obese women at 27 were more than twice as likely to be depressed at 30. Females depressed at 27 were at increased risk for alcohol disorders when they were 30.

Carolyn McCarty, UW research associate professor of pediatrics and psychology, said:
“For women there is a …read more

There isn’t a woman around that doesn’t feel awkward about her body a little. Most of us have some issues here and there with at least one body part.
Glamour magazine wanted to find out what women really thought about their bodies, and more than that, why some women felt confident while others didn’t. They did their very first “body survey” in 1984. Do the words “leotards” and “high-impact aerobics” ring a bell at all? That was 1984. During that first survey, “75 percent of women surveyed felt they were too fat, and more than 60 …read more

Did anyone happen to catch yesterday’s news conference on Iraq, held by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw?
At one point during this rather long and dry broadcast, Mr. Straw, commenting on the future leadership of Iraq, said: “We do have, I think, a right to say that we’ve got to be able to deal with Mr. A, or Mr. B, or Mr. C. We can’t deal with Mr. Nobody. And that’s the problem, OK?”
To which Condi suddenly shot back, without missing a beat, “…maybe what we will see is Ms. A or Ms. B or …read more