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"Today&amp;#039;s blog continues the subject of makeovers. Are you for or against them? Reader Hot Flash (whose moniker I like) takes issue with the idea that women should feel compelled to do &amp;quot;the 360 &amp;#039;makeover&amp;#039; of mind and body&amp;quot; at menopause. &amp;quot;I fail to see why women have to review their lives simply because their period has stopped,&amp;quot; states Hot Flash. Doing so, she says, stereotypes women, tying us or reducing us, as the case may be, solely to our reproductive status. Another reader, Zoe, couldn&amp;#039;t disagree more. She says, &amp;quot;menopause is the perfect time for a makeover,&amp;quot; and she lost 20 pounds with Staness Jonekos&amp;#039;s The Menopause Makeover. I can see the appeal of Jonekos&amp;#039;s book, which I skimmed in the bookstore today. Her situation is unusual (I agree with Hot Flash), in that most women don&amp;#039;t gain 25 pounds that quickly and get married for the first time during menopause. But Jonekos&amp;#039;s upbeat tone and can-do message could very well be useful to women who feel their lives and bodies are out of control during menopause and that the best is behind them. I don&amp;#039;t think women should feel compelled to do a makeover and reinvision their lives at menopause or any other time of their lives. Unless they want to. And it is true that almost all the books on menopause discuss this transition as a time of transformation \u2013 bodily, spiritually, emotionally, vocationally. But while there&amp;#039;s truth to the transformative aspect in a strictly biological sense, the weight we give these changes is entirely up to us. Personally, I don&amp;#039;t feel it necessary to do the 360 rethink of body and mind, nor make sweeping changes, though I should eat more fruits and vegetables. And I know many women who sail through menopause thinking good riddance, and that&amp;#039;s about it. Still, it&amp;#039;s hard to resist what feels like a cultural imperative to transform our lives when our body changes. There&amp;#039;s no denying that &amp;quot;menopause makeover&amp;quot; has a ring to it; it&amp;#039;s catchy; it&amp;#039;s designed to sells books. And a chatty, inspirational guide to taking back some of the control that menopausal symptoms can strip away may be what&amp;#039;s needed. Care to chime in readers? Are you using this time to makeover your life? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/a44704/makeovers-redux-2300/>