Beyond Measure Ellen Frankel Author
by Ellen Frankel
2021-04-02 21:57:19
Beyond Measure Ellen Frankel Author
by Ellen Frankel
2021-04-02 21:57:19
A touching, tender and at times funny account of a womanâs struggle for stature in a 4 foot 8½ inch tall body, Beyond Measure speaks to the heart of soul-breaking attempts to fit an arbitrary and elusive cultural ideal of physical perfection....
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A touching, tender and at times funny account of a womanâs struggle for stature in a 4 foot 8½ inch tall body, Beyond Measure speaks to the heart of soul-breaking attempts to fit an arbitrary and elusive cultural ideal of physical perfection. Being short isnât the problem, Ellen Frankel insists. Instead, the real difficulties lie in the social bias against short people.Ellen shares the difficulties of living short in a world in which stereotypes are based on gender and size. She moves beyond her own experience into the political realm in revealing how pharmaceutical companiesâwith government backingâare expanding the market for human growth hormone treatment by reclassifying healthy short children as patients in âneedâ of such injections in hopes of making them taller.She shares the dilemma of being subjected to simultaneous messages that her physical body should be biggerâthat is, taller, but not widerâwhile her expansive spiritual body should be smaller. Self-destructive behaviors emerge from too much attention on the external rather than the internal workings of the soul. Ellen flirts with eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with powerful males in an attempt to compensate for her feelings of not âmeasuring up.â In the process, her real self slips farther away.The path out of her dilemma lies in the shadow of the tallest mountain on Earth. It is through a spiritual pilgrimage to Nepal that Ellen discovers her own strength and spirit, and that we are all dwarfed by Everest and beyond measure.
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