The Locker Room Diaries

Explores locker room culture that reveals what, exactly, goes into shaping not just a woman's body - but her body image - and how to let go of the drive to be "perfect". Part memoir, part social anthropology and part plain good gossip all rolled into one, this is a wake-up call for any woman who has ever engaged in the "what if" wishing game.

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This is a thoughtful, often hilarious exploration of locker room culture that reveals what, exactly, goes into shaping not just a woman's body - but her body image - and how to let go of the drive to be "perfect". The locker room can be a safe haven for women - a place to escape the pressures of the day and feel good about themselves and their bodies. It's a place to regroup after working out, to swap stories with workout friends. But, as Leslie Goldman reveals, the locker room is also where our flaws become most apparent and where most of us can't help but wonder how we "measure up" against our fitness companions. Typically dressed in no more than a towel, Leslie spent five years interviewing women in her Chicago health club about body image: the result is a hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, all-too-revealing testament that we women are our own worst critics - and our self-criticisms are highlighted under the locker room's fluorescent lights. As Leslie says, the locker room is home to "the public trading of body flaws like so many stocks and bonds."
Through deliciously confiding stories from women of all shapes and sizes (coupled with advice from the experts), Leslie takes readers on a journey of women's obsessions with our bodies, both good and bad. From compulsive workouts to relaxing saunas, from bikini waxing to dates with the scale, she confirms that society's pressures to look beautiful, be scarily thin, are write small in our nation's health clubs. But, she also finds in this culture of constant comparison plenty of women who've put the scale in its place, have stopped the cycle of self-loathing, and have set workout goals that are - surprise! - attainable. Part memoir, part social anthropology and part plain good gossip all rolled into one, this book is a wake-up call for any woman who has ever engaged in the "what if" wishing game (what if my thighs were thinner, my breasts larger, etc.).