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dieting as a teenager even though she wasn’t fat. She bought into the advertising and weight-loss industries’ message that she had to be thin and, from that point on, everything she did and everything she achieved was colored by her battle with weight. Then in the late 1970s Sharon realized something startling – dieting doesn’t work and, more often than not, it actually causes weight gain. That realization led her to spend several years trying to understand why. She read the research studies dating back for decades, talked to other dieters, doctors and therapists, and attended conferences and diet-club meetings. Sharon’s personal experience with dieting and the results of her extensive research were captured in a book published in 1983 by Dodd, Mead, and Company. This 231-page hardcover book was titled Stop Dieting – Start Living!: How one angry woman finally gave up dieting, regained her self-esteem – and stopped feeling ashamed, guilty, rejected and a failure. Since then Sharon has worked as a writer, editor and a university teacher. She has a BA and a Master’s Degree in English Literature, and taught writing and literature at San Francisco State University for several years. She also was editor of a national magazine in Washington, DC and worked as a writer and editor in New York City and San Francisco. For the past 15 years, Sharon has worked as a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2006, Sharon was contacted by Allen Oelschlaeger who discovered her book in the process of doing research for his comprehensive home-study course: Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness. He was so impressed by her work (“best book on dieting ever written”) that he contacted Sharon and asked if his publishing company could re-release her book as a companion volume to his course. Sharon agreed and an updated edition of her book was released in late 2007 with the title The Straight Scoop About Dieting: Learn the truths about weight-loss diets so you can stop feeling guilty and start losing weight. Sharon’s husband, Jim Patton, owns a consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area and her daughter Kate, who has been a constant joy in their lives for all her 22 years, is now attending San Francisco State University where Sharon used to teach. She is a theater major and very talented.
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