Alice in menopauseland: the jabberwocky of a medicalized middle age.

Active living is being advanced in the scientific literature as an essential and effective resource to sustained health and vitality in middle-aged women, with potent benefits to biological, social, and emotional health. At the same time, menopausal women are being counseled that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the treatment of choice for combating symptoms and diseases that accompany female aging. Assisted by the writing of Lewis Carroll, here we gaze "through the looking glass" on women's health choices as they are relayed through current medical practice. By exploring the jabberwocky of communications experienced by women as they consider the best pathway to late life health, we show that active living is a worthy alternative--potent for health promotion, broader than hormones in its benefits, and is the more empowering and ethical route for women's long-term health.