Renee Engeln Ph.D.

About

Renee Engeln, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, is the author of Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women. Her work has appeared in numerous academic journals and at academic conferences, and she speaks to groups across the country. She is regularly interviewed by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, BBC, the Huffington Post, and other national media. Her TEDx talk has more than 500,000 views on YouTube.

Books by Renee Engeln Ph.D.

Recent Posts

Body Dissatisfaction Is Expensive

A new analysis estimates that body dissatisfaction and appearance-based discrimination create billions of dollars in costs for individuals, the government, and society at large.

Gender Diversity in Physics Classes Benefits Men and Women

New research across 124 physics classrooms finds that a brief belongingness intervention can have remarkable outcomes, but only if classrooms are gender diverse.

Negative Moods Are Revealed in Teen Girls’ Language

Consistent with the idea that depression makes us self-focused, a new study shows that girls who are feeling sad use more first-person pronouns when typing on their phones.

What Depression Actually Looks Like

A new series of studies shows just how hard it can be to recognize depression—especially when we let our ideas of what a typical depressed person looks like affect our judgments.

Online Shopping Can Be a Blow to Body Image

Online shopping can be fun, but can also leave many women feeling worse about themselves. Browsing for activewear, in particular, seems to pack a negative psychological punch.

Why You Shouldn't Worry How You Look When You Work Out

Two new studies show that women who focus on how they look while they're exercising might miss out on the benefits that working out can bring.

How Influencers Make Young Women Feel Bad

Social media influencers can have a negative impact on young women’s mood and body image, new research finds—especially when the images they post are sexualized.

Narcissistic Men Have Higher Testosterone

New research finds that men who score high on the type of narcissism associated with status-seeking and ego-boosting have higher levels of testosterone.

What Happens When Children Think Girls Are Bad at Math

A new study finds that even in classrooms where girls outperform boys on math tests, classmates’ belief that boys are better at math still has a negative impact.

Women with Disordered Eating See More Toxic Instagram Posts

Social media use and eating struggles are correlated. Is it because women with disordered eating are more likely to seek out fitspiration and thinspiration?