Undieting, Body Image, Body Neutrality and Positivity, and Intuitive Eating
Here are some great resources if you are struggling with food, eating, body shame, self-esteem, dieting, binge-restrict cycles, and feeling like your worth or happiness is dependent on your body size. If you would like to find freedom in your relationship with food and develop a loving and supportive and intuitive relationship with your body, scroll down to check out all the amazing resources [books, podcasts, and videos] below:
BODY IMAGE
Bonnie Singman
10/3/20235 min read
VIDEOS:
Check Out "Poodle Science" to Explain Why Health At Every Size Makes Sense
Embrace [on Netflix]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISHzzBGyt4g
BOOKS
1. The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
Do you apologize for how you look because you are ashamed of your body? If so, read this book.
In this book, the author advocates radical self-love. Radical self-love is much more than having a high self-esteem, self-confidence or self-acceptance. It’s our natural state of being and it’s not just about loving yourself. It operates at both the individual and systemic levels.
When you are judging your body or comparing it with others, you are judging other people’s body too. We unknowingly participate in body shaming due to the conditioning of the social, political and economic systems. Reading this book will open you to new perspectives and set you free.
2. Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe
If you think you need to reach your ideal weight and shrink yourself in order to be happy, read this book.
Written by an Instagram star (@bodyposipanda), the author advocates that the real path to happiness is loving the body you have. After spending years battling anorexia and weight fluctuations, the author decided to quit dieting and overcome her feelings of body shame and self-hatred.
A believer in fat acceptance and intersectional body positivity, the author shares her struggles and her journey to self-acceptance. She also gives tips on how to see yourself in a different way. People who struggle with eating disorders will relate to this book.
3. Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon
Fat isn’t the problem. Dieting is the problem. Weight loss isn’t the benefit. Health is the benefit.
Written by a health professor and researcher, this anti-diet book is scientific-researched and tells you why it is difficult to lose weight biologically. As per the author, dieting is not only ineffective at producing long-term weight loss and satisfaction, but it actually induces weight gain.
If you are obsessed with losing weight and dieting or you are constantly restricting what you eat and feeling guilty for eating something you are not supposed to eat, this book is suitable for you. It helps you to dispel myths with regards to weight.
4. Embody by Connie Sobczak
This book emphasizes acceptance and celebration of the unique beauty of individuals regardless of age, size, sexual orientation, gender or ethnicity.
Everyone has the inherent wisdom and ability to make healthy choices and live a balanced life. In this book, the author offers a gentle approach to dealing with appearance and body image. Rather than giving you a set of rigid steps or rules, the author takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery to find what works for them.
By practicing mindfulness and mastering certain competencies, every person can lead a healthy, positive and fulfilling life. This book is best suited for those who are looking for something beyond a step-by-step guide.
5. Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight -- and What We Can Do about It by Harriet Brown
Over the past twenty-five years, our quest for thinness has morphed into a relentless obsession with weight and body image. In our culture, "fat" has become a four-letter word. Or, as Lance Armstrong said to the wife of a former teammate, "I called you crazy. I called you a bitch. But I never called you fat." How did we get to this place where the worst insult you can hurl at someone is "fat"? Where women and girls (and increasingly men and boys) will diet, purge, overeat, undereat, and berate themselves and others, all in the name of being thin?
As a science journalist, Harriet Brown has explored this collective longing and fixation from an objective perspective; as a mother, wife, and woman with "weight issues," she has struggled to understand it on a personal level. Now, in Body of Truth, Brown systematically unpacks what's been offered as "truth" about weight and health.
Starting with the four biggest lies, Brown shows how research has been manipulated; how the medical profession is complicit in keeping us in the dark; how big pharma and big, empty promises equal big, big dollars; how much of what we know (or think we know) about health and weight is wrong. And how all of those affect all of us every day, whether we know it or not.
The quest for health and wellness has never been more urgent, yet most of us continue to buy into fad diets and unattainable body ideals, unaware of the damage we're doing to ourselves. Through interviews, research, and her own experience, Brown not only gives us the real story on weight, health, and beauty, but also offers concrete suggestions for how each of us can sort through the lies and misconceptions and make peace with and for ourselves.
PODCASTS
https://www.meredith.edu/news/meredith-college-welcomes-southern-smash-in-fighting-eating-disorders/
The non-diet, intuitive eating podcast to help you stop dieting and find wellness without the obsession
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-love-your-body/id1371532256
DOCUMENTARY BY THIS PODCAST:
Behind the Before and After: Intuitive Eating and Body Image Documentary
We are two women who are passionate about body positivity and empowering people. This podcast is an opportunity start the conversation about being fierce. Self Esteem, Image, pressures, fashion, love, sex, feminism and more.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/yes-body-politics/id1390946843
Eat the Rules is dedicated to empowering you to break free of societal standards, body shame and live life beyond the scale.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eat-the-rules-with-summer-innanen/id886241220
The Body Image Podcast is a podcast about body image and the many layers that go into making peace with our bodies. Like intuitive eating, self-compassion, mental health, self-care, body and size acceptance, embodiment, rejecting diet culture, and more. Podcast host, registered dietitian, nutrition therapist, and certified intuitive eating counselor, Corinne Dobbas, MS, RD, talks with guests to help unpack these layers while discussing what positive body image means and looks like in real life. The goal of The Body Image Podcast is to help listeners better their understanding of what it means to make peace with food, heal their body image concerns, and reconnect with who they are as a WHOLE person. You can learn more and get full show notes at CorinneDobbas.com.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-body-image-podcast/id1340435871
5) Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison:
https://christyharrison.com/foodpsych
https://christyharrison.com/subscribe-to-food-psych
ABOUT: Welcome to Food Psych®, a podcast about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size®, and body liberation.
In each episode, I talk with inspiring guests—including health and psychology professionals, anti-diet activists, and leaders in the body-liberation movement—about their relationships with food, paths to body-image healing and fat acceptance, and experiences of recovery from weight stigma and eating disorders. This podcast calls out diet culture for the life thief that it is, and challenges it in all its sneaky forms—including the restrictive behaviors that often masquerade as wellness and fitness.
6) The Eatfluencer Podcast Maggie Landes MD
You are what you eat, and the quality of your life depends on food. Despite knowing this, when it comes to eating, we fall prey to our own emotions, cunning retail tactics, social convention, and our toxic food environment.
Join Maggie Landes, MD – physician, nutritionist, and foodie - as she and her guests explore ways you can take back control of your health, ditch the dieting culture, navigate the nutritional landscape with confidence, satisfaction, and peace.
Today is when you can love eating again. Let food be food and you be you.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-eatfluencer-podcast/id1537284754
Contacts
lightsomatic@gmail.com
619-289-7604
Bonnie Singman, MA, LPC, PSEP