The pressure to acheive unattainable standards, such as Twiggy's thinness, resulted in women having a hateful relationship with their bodies, Bloom says.

Bloom, who was active in the women's movement in the 1970s, points out the irony of the growth of feminism coinciding with the Twiggy craze.

"At the same moment, incredible mandates of what acceptable is supposed to look like" were put upon women, says Bloom.

photo: Birch Lane Press

Terry Poulton wrote this book after a life of frustraiton with diets.

"The body is the arena to work these struggles out," she says.

The institute believes that all dieting leads to overeating. The idea, which first emerged in the early 1970s, was sparked by women meeting in informal groups to discuss why they constantly strove for physical perfection. Women in these groups concluded that diets lead to feelings of deprivation, which leads to overeating, which leads to weight gain, which starts the process all over again.