Janet Jackson details weight issues in new self-help and diet book

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American pop star Janet Jackson's self-help and diet book True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself hits bookstores in the US and UK on February 15, days after she launches her 35-city world tour in support of her 2009 best-of collection, Number Ones.

Writer David Ritz, who cowrote Marvin Gaye's tune "Sexual Healing," cowrote Jackson's book, in which she details her struggles with self-esteem and weight and the steps she took to overcome them.

In the book she details her life and how weight issues became a problem as early as the age of ten. When she was cast on the American TV sitcom Good Times, she was told to lose weight and bind her breasts, which were beginning to develop. "In both cases the message was devastating - my body was wrong," she writes in the book. "The message was also clear - to be successful, I had to change the way I looked." Jackson says on her website that she hopes the book will help others find their peace as well.

On March 29, American singer and songwriter Sheryl Crow's healthy anti-cancer cookbook, If It Makes You Healthy, is also releasing.

On February 8, Jackson launched her world tour in Singapore, followed by stops in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Manila. She plans to hit 35 cities in a tour dubbed "Number Ones: Up Close and Personal," supporting Number Ones, a double-album featuring her 35 number-one US hits. Outside of the US, Number Ones is entitled Janet Jackson: The Number Ones, and the album marks Jackson's second hits album, following 1995's Design of a Decade 1986/1996. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Jackson has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.

http://www.janetjackson.com