The active female. Health issues throughout the lifespan

OVERALL RATING Poor

STRENGTHS Several teaching aids are included

WEAKNESSES Serious flaws in content and style; too simple for a physician audience

AUDIENCE Ranges from undergraduate university students to sports or medical professionals

This book consists of 29 chapters, which are divided into 6 parts. The first editor, Robert-McComb, wrote 14 of these chapters. Each chapter starts with a set of learning objectives and finishes with questions and answers. The book includes a CD-ROM with a PowerPoint presentation for each chapter.

Unfortunately, this book has serious substantive flaws. Despite its title, it is really about female pathology through the lifespan. For example, the concept of “body image” is defined solely in terms of “disturbance” and “distortions.” Most of the 17 chapters have terms such as dysfunction or abnormal in their titles. The last 12 chapters do, however, discuss the active female more positively and focus on recommendations and guidelines for nutrition and exercise.

Another major problem, particularly for a professional audience, is that the book is too elementary. Perhaps some physicians will gain new wisdom but most won’t.

Stylistic problems abound. The book reads like a compendium, as if the authors started with the PowerPoint presentations and converted them into a book instead of vice versa. The chapters are divided and subdivided into multiple levels, resulting in awkwardly numbered sections, some of which are very short. Moreover, the items in the lists begin with numbers in brackets while italicized numbers in brackets indicate the references, all in the same font; this is confusing at best.

Unfortunately, I am unable to recommend The Active Female to Canadian Family Physician readers as a useful tool for enhancing knowledge or practice.

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