I am a young professional woman who just finished reading His Needs, Her Needs. Despite Willard having many excellent opinions on various topics, I have to voice my disagreement and frustration with his views on physical attractiveness. (Yes, I have read all of the Q & A's on these topics!)
I am a survivor of anorexia nervosa that threatened my health and my life, with side effects lasting another 5 years after recovery. During that time I also struggled with the ubiquitous "ED-NOS" or "Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" which refers to many forms of disordered eating that do not officially meet the criteria for diagnosis according to the DSM-IV.
I am extremely disappointed in the author's views on this subject; as women in Western society, we are judged many times every single day by media, billboards, "friends", family members, strangers, and others influences. Our weight is constantly criticized, and those beautiful human beings who happen to weigh more than average are belittled, humiliated, and ridiculed. Likewise, women who are thin receive much positive reinforcement throughout their day from friends and strangers alike, and this encouragement is frequently used as incentive and motivation to continue trying to achieve and maintain an unhealthy body size.
One of his concepts in the "Admiration" chapter is that "Self-Esteem Usually Begins at Home". Well, that self-esteem is going to plummet if a man is hinting that she would be more attractive if she lost weight. Additionally, reading books such as this one, do an incredible amount of psychological damage to women whose self-esteem isn't particularly good to begin with.
In some cases, with the hinting of her husband, as well as that reinforcement that losing weight will cause her to be more attractive, women will gain the will to starve themselves, leading to a potentially deadly disease, that robs millions of women of both life, and of happiness in their life, while it lasts. In many other cases, women try to starve themselves, and end up so hungry that binging is inevitable (trust me, I have had this personal experience after my year with anorexia) and those same women will want to stay slender to improve their marriage (according to Willard) and will thus rely on every imaginable method to get rid of the calories they ingested, including purging, compulsively exercising, laxative abuse and enemas.
If a woman's self-esteem is to begin at home, her husband NEEDS to remind her FREQUENTLY (as in, every chance he gets--many times a day!) that she is beautiful. There are too many other influences in her life shouting that she is unattractive, not good enough, and that she'll never measure up and in my opinion, speaking with many women on this matter, a husband who does build her up will actually build up his love bank. Even ONE single negative comment on her weight, size, body build, make up, dress, hair, etc has the power to haunt her for YEARS to come. I wish this were an exaggeration, but it is unfortunately not.
I wish that the author was much more sensitive to the issue of eating disorders in his book. In the grand scheme of life and (OR!) death from an eating disorder, versus how happy a shallow, misogynistic, self-centered man is, I would hope that every woman would choose to put her health and life above a marriage.
I cannot support him, and I sincerely hope that his message does not fall into impressionable women who will use it to fuel their eating disorders. Please, let us stop eating disorders for once and for all. And this type of male approval (thin = beautiful) is harming millions of women all over the world. Enough is enough. When will we take a stand against such evil?
