To Your Health; Women's Health; Scientific American Presents; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

None of the women you've seen in the photographs that open each of the four sections of this special issue is a model: they're our friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives. When we began planning this issue, we wanted it to reflect real women and real health concerns, not just a set of dehumanized statistics. We wanted to put faces on the most up-to-date health information so that affected women-including our mothers, sisters, daughters and friends-would know they aren't alone.

Too often women take good health for granted until it's too late. They assume they won't be the ones to develop an eating disorder, have a heart attack or contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Many women say they're just too busy to take care of themselves: they're working late, taking the kids to the dentist or nursing elderly parents-if not all three.