Ask CosmoGIRL! About Your Body: All the Answers to Your Most Intimate Questions

by CosmoGIRL! Magazine, CosmoGIRL! Magazine

Our bodies don’t come with instruction manuals, and many young women aren’t sure exactly what’s normal and what isn’t. Worse yet, they often suffer needlessly—or put themselves in danger—because they’re too embarrassed to ask their parents or doctor. Now, courtesy of CosmoGIRL! , comes the sympathetic, dependable help they need. Here are actual questions sent in by real girls, with the editors’ carefully researched responses. The topics cover everything from body basics to serious physical problems to mental health. Want to know if a burn will scar your skin? What to do about irregular periods? How to handle a too-visible hickey? Whether it’s really dangerous to be obese? Should you seek counseling for depression—or is there another way to beat the blues? All these and hundreds of other important issues receive the thoughtful, honest answers that every girl wants to know.  

Genres: Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 2006

Reviews

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an updated version of the same book girls have been reading for generations as their bodies begin to change during puberty. It’s divided into five chapters: body basics, girl stuff, healthy body & healthy mind, the big “s” (as in sex), and serious issues. Body basics covers topics that could answer questions posed by teen boys or girls, including sweating, body hair, hemorrhoids, and weight. Girl Stuff covers breasts, the sex organs, and menstruation. Healthy body & healthy mind helps teens with questions on stress, sleep, depression, and therapy. The big “s” chapter covers the obvious as well as questions about birth control and pregnancy. Finally, serious issues includes stds and other serious diseases, friends in trouble, and sexual identity.

The coverage of sexual topics, including when to have sex and how to use birth control, is refreshingly more candid than similar resources in the past. Ask CosmoGirl! does not try to push abstinence, although it does promote making responsible, informed choices and using protection. The questions, which appear to have come from real readers to CosmoGirl! editors, sound honest and are well-representing some of the issues teenage girls have. Previous books on this topic seem to focus purely on sex and body changes that happen during puberty, and ignore issues that are of equal interest to women as men, like sweating and feces. The coverage of sexual identity was not as thorough, however, and is relegated to one question at the very end of the book. Overall, the fact that this is published by a popular teen magazine will encourage girls to pick it up.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me with all of my life changing experiences, like going through puberty and getting all of these funny feelings all over my body.

Almost all of the questions asked in this book, were the kind of questions that I was too shy to ask anyone even my pediatrician. But knowing that I'm not the only one with these problems helped me understand and all of the answers that the girls got were helpful towards me because now I know ho w to take care of my body for the rest of my teenage years.... and then I have to read a book about my adult years!!!

This book was very helpful.