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As body positivity, body neutrality and fat liberation make their way into the cultural lexicon of instagram captions and mainstream magazines, it’s really easy to see bits of diet culture sneak their way in (disguised as “wellness”) and continue to focus on weight loss and shrinking a body more than how to properly nourish the person who lives in said body. Not cool, we hate to see it.
That’s why it’s great that we’re seeing more and more material that kicks aside those pre-conceived notions about health and fitness and instead focus on the ways we can actually radically love our bodies and make the world more inclusive for every kind of body. If your bookshelf is offering slim pickings on books that make you feel good and empowered about the skin you’re in, look no further, we’ve got a grown-up summer reading list available to help you consider all the ways your body deserves a little bit more care and kindness.
Read on for books about nutrition, self-love, wellness and just rocking your best life in your body no matter what society’s obsession with thinness and weight loss tries to tell you.
A version of this story was published August 2021.
More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament
While it’s no secret our society makes it really hard to believe that you can have a happy, full and complete life without obsessing about being thin, Lindsay and Lexie Kite (both PhDs), use their background researching body image to show all the ways you can reexamine how you view your body and yourself. The coolest parts of More Than A Bodyare when it unpacks how bypass simple “body positivity” and instaed cultivate “body image resilience.”
Body Respect
The wellness space is crawling with all kinds of poorly-researched fatphobia that equates thinness with health. In Body RespectDr. Linda Bacon and Dr. Lucy Aphramor explore and debunk common fatphobic myths and trends in healthcare (from the reliance on BMI to anti-fat bias) alongside intersecting issues that affect marginalized demographics to consider how we can more accurately and effectively talk about bodies and weight.
#Very Fat, #Very Brave
For the best POVs about living in fat bodies, go to people who are funny, kind and smart and live their lives in fat bodies. Throughout her book, Nicole Byer hilariously pokes fun at the culture that calls fat people brave for donning a swim suit while also acknowledging all the ways you might need bravery to brave the fatphobic society we live in. Fun and hilarious, this one’s for folks who just want to live peacefully and happilly in their bods and for everyone else to mind their business.
Body Positive Power
Megan Jayne Crabbe (known on Instagram and around the Internet as @meganjaynecrabbe) is a fashion, lifestyle and body positive influencer who has spent years speaking the good word about enjoying your life and not letting it pass you by just because the world wants you to hate your body.
Sharing her own story of self-acceptance throughout Body Positive Power, Crabbe offers insight into how you can live a more body positive life.
The Body Is Not An Apology
A New York Times-bestseller from Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology zooms out and inward to look deeply at how dismantling all systems of oppression that harm different bodies can lead to truly radical self-love. Poetic, full of compassion and some seriously beautiful moments, this one is highly recommended for anyone who needs a spiritual shake-up on their body acceptance and body love journey.
Food Isn’t Medicine
Since health-trolling and weight loss grifts are some nonsense that you’ll perpetually encounter while trying to heal your relationship with your body and food, it helps to have a few strong medical voices in the conversation to cut through the B.S. Enter Dr. Joshua Wolrich, a UK-based doctor who has been doing some serious work debunking body hate myths and so-called “nutribollocks” (the untrue nonsense that diet culture and diarrhea tea MLMs feeds us on the reg) on Instagram and in his best-selling book Food Isn’t Medicine.
Insightful, evidence-based and hitting home the all-too-important reminder that losing weight isn’t your life’s objective, this one is a must-read for folks looking to arm themselves with science as they learn to love their bodies.
Body Positive
Geared more toward younger women, this guide to body positivity is a beautiful exploration of all the societal standards that encourage body hate and a gentle friend to take you through the work of normalizing, making peace and even loving your body. Plus, there’s tons of untouched photos of diverse bodies to help make sure you never feel alone or weird or bad about yours.
Body Neutrality
Again, body positivity can only go so far when it comes to the larger mission of fat liberation and body acceptance. It’s not so much about loving your body but re-imagining what it actually means to love your body and the ways we think about our bodies physically and aesthetically.
“But what if loving your body doesn’t mean what we think it means? What if we don’t have to love the way we look? There’s a better way to combat negative body image and diet culture, and it doesn’t come with a new standard of beauty. By practicing body neutrality, we can learn to peacefully dwell in our bodies and stop thinking so much about how we look,” per Ayla Freitas Ghibaudy, the author of ‘Body Neutrality.’ “This book is for every woman out there who is tired of hating her body. This is for every woman who is ready to show her body radical acceptance and respect. This is for every woman who is tired of being boxed into spaces she no longer fits and is ready for liberation.”
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