Girls on Track: A Parent's Guide to Inspiring Our Daughters to Achieve a Lifetime of Self-Esteem and Respect

During adolescence, if a girl isn’t careful, she can fall into a trap called the Girl Box—a place where the way she looks is more important than who she is, where having a boyfriend is worth giving up a piece of her identity. This is a very serious problem, one that can lead to substance abuse, eating disorders, early sexual contact, and depression. Now Molly Barker, founder of the dynamic Girls on the Run® exercise program, has created a ten-week self-esteem-building plan that will instill resiliency in young girls and enhance their emotional, social, physical, mental, and spiritual health. The activities and lessons are designed for parents and girls to do together and include

Molly Barker, MSW, a four-time Hawaii Ironman triathlete, founded Girls on the Run in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1996. Molly began running at the age of 15—an age when she found herself stuck in the Girl Box, when only girls who were a certain size with a certain beauty were popular. Molly kept running and years later, on July 7, 1993, she took off on a sunset run and found the inspiration that grew into Girls on the Run. Using her background in counseling and teaching and her personal recovery from alcoholism, along with research on adolescent issues, she developed the earliest version of the curriculum with the help of 13 intrepid girls at Charlotte Country Day School. The program grew and today Molly oversees more than 20,000 girls who participate in GOTR programs across the country. In 1998, Runner’s World awarded Molly its Golden Shoe Award for contributions to the community through running. Her favorite times remain the ones she spends with her own daughter and her son at their home in Charlotte, North Carolina.