Indigenous Australian Sportswomen: Inspiring the Next Generation

This book includes six chapters that detail various aspects of women’s health. Chapter One uses a hermeneutic phenomenological method to explore hope in eating disordered women. Chapter Two considers the importance of hope as a mediating factor in the complicated relationships between body shame and eating disorder behavior as well as with substance use/abuse behavior via an Internet survey. Chapter Three examines the influence of six Indigenous Australian sportswomen and their role as sporting role models for women and girls. Chapter Four highlights the research that has been conducted regarding eating disorders in women of color and reviews the unique race and culture-related risk factors that may influence the presence of eating disorder symptoms. Chapter Five deals with the history and definition of food craving, the cognitive event of appetizing targeting, the associations with the diet mentality as a promoter of moral judgment concerning food, and the twelve primary triggers according to the latest data from studies in the field of eating disorders. Finally, Chapter Six focuses on the association between physical activity and menopausal transition from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology and evolutionary medicine.