We're influenced by peers, we're influenced by messages and images we see in the media, by our parents - when we look in the mirror, we're looking through all of those things. You can't get an honest, realistic assessment of how you look that's not colored by those things. It's just not how human psychology works.

Psychologist Renee Engeln examines beauty sickness in our culture - the psychological stress placed on women and girls to measure up to cultural ideas around their bodies, and explains why moving to a healthier society requires both a shift in individual actions, and a transformation of our culture itself.

Renee is author of Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women from Harper Collins.

Renee will be speaking about her book at the Evanston Lit Fest this weekend. Find out more here.