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Home > Weight Loss News > Author and Speaker Robyn M. McGee Visits Barnes and Noble Baltimore
Author and Speaker Robyn M. McGee Visits Barnes and Noble Baltimore
Author and Speaker Robyn McGee writes about her sister's death from gastric bypass surgery and the subject of obesity in the African American comunity
(PRWEB) November 2, 2005 -- If you are an African-American woman, chances are you are considered to be fat. Statistics show 70 % of African-American women are classified as overweight or obese. Is this a result of the classifier or the classified? In reality, it is both. Due to their genetic makeup, very few adult, African-American women are able to wear a size 2 and because they are constantly compared to the skinny women society parades before us as ‘supermodels’, their self-image is always under attack. This constant barrage of being subliminally reminded they are not beautiful because they don’t have the correct body dimensions is not only physically unhealthy, but also mentally and emotionally draining. Robyn M. McGee faced this fatal reality firsthand.
“My sister Cathy always loved a good party. The last time I saw her, she was hosting a friends wedding” McGee reveals. “With her head thrown back in laughter, Cathy held a champagne glass in hand and was surrounded endless bottles of wine and enough food to feed ten armies.”
Cathy was always conscientious about the full bosom, wide hips and thick legs in which most black women are born. Cathy was a beautiful and accomplished black woman. She was married, having four children and owned her own business. Still, Cathy was dissatisfied with her looks. Her lifelong obsession with her weight compelled her to indulge in the wrong foods, at the wrong times all for the wrong reasons. Once she was considered one hundred pounds overweight, Cathy qualified for gastric bypass surgery. Her desperate quest to be thin proved to be deadly.
“As I look back, I realize that Cathy’s struggle was not with her weight, but with feelings of inadequacy,” declares McGee. “If she’d understood that her perceptions were obscured by the societal norms and popular culture, she would have appreciated the dimensions that God gave black women and celebrated what she was rather than chasing something she wasn’t.”
In Hungry for More: A Keeping-it-Real Guide for Black Women on Weight and Body Image, author and speaker, Robyn McGee offers a holistic approach to weight and health by addressing their social and cultural implications. With foreword and praise by former U.S. Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, M.D., Hungry for More is a straight-talking, informative book that encourages readers to take control of their health and utilize practical ways they can combat obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle. McGee believes that without first addressing the deficiencies in our perception; no diet or surgery can be successful.
“Unless you change what’s in your heart and mind, no amount of surgery will make you feel whole. Without psychological change to go with your physical change, you could risk gaining all of the weight back.”
McGee is the Director of Women’s Resources at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Keeping her sister’s memory at the forefront, she is both sympathetic and upfront in conveying to readers the importance of honoring themselves by making healthy lifestyle choices, being patient and diligent, seeking help when necessary and remembering that they are much more than a number on a scale or dress size.
Hungry for More: A Keeping-it-Real Guide for Black Women on Weight and Body Image is due to be released in December 2005 by Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.
Advance Praise for Hungry for More:
"Hungry for More is deliciously informative, real satisfying food for the soul, and a must read for all women."—Josefina Lopez, Chicana activist and author of Real Women Have Curves
“With the obesity epidemic among African-American women on the rise, this book provides very valuable information for black women who want to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Following much of the advice in this book will lead to a higher quality of life.” —Alvin F. Poussaint, MD. Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Judge Baker Children’s Center, Boston MA
“I promise this book will make you feel full. McGee dares to go where few authors do – into the heart, stomach and pulse of the African-American female battle with hunger and weight. This is a personal and urgent account of how women are destroying ourselves – and how we can turn the tide away from hunger and obesity into freedom and power.” —Eve Ensler, Playwright
“This insightful book comes at a critical time: when more and more women are dying to be thin. After losing her own sister to gastric bypass surgery, Robyn McGee set out on a mission to get to the bottom of Black women’s with obsession with their weight. The result: A fascinating read. This is a great book to give to your sister, your mother, your best friend, and, even better, yourself. —Pamela K. Johnson, West Coast Editor, Essence Magazine
About the Author
Robyn McGee is a longtime activist and women’s rights advocate. She is currently Director of Women’s Resources at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and she frequently lectures on women’s issues and popular culture.. Her work has been published in Seventeen, The Black World Today, and Fireweed Feminist Journal. She lives in Southern California, with her daughter.
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