Suggested Reading

Linda Bacon, Health At Every Size; The Surprising Truth About Your Weight
Extensively researched, easy to read, practical and essential
—Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better) Addresses the political, sociological, psychological and biological underpinnings of belonging

Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor, Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand
Health at every size, personalized, with a focus on social justice

Hanne Blank, The Unapologetic Fat Girl’s Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts
For beginner and experienced exercisers
—Fat
Fat as state, as possession, as metaphor, as symptom, as object of desire, intellectual and carnal.

Natalie Boero, Killer Fat: Media, Medicine, and Morals in the American “Obesity Epidemic”
Reviews of various approaches to weigh loss and how they reinforce social control

Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
The links between Western culture’s mind/body dichotomy and the cult of thinness

Heather Brown and Nancy Ellis-Ordway, eds., Weight Bias in Health Education: Critical Perspectives for Pedagogy and Practice
A collection of chapters about the harmful effects of weight stigma in medical care

Harriet Brown, Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight –and What We Can Do About It
Delightful mix of science and social commentary

Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth
Compelling argument that America’s obsession with weight is hazardous to your health

Ragen Chastain, Fat: The Owner’s Manual
“Navigating a thin-obsessed world with your health, happiness and sense of humor intact”

Ragen Chastain (ed), The Politics of Size: Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement
Two volumes covering topics such as activism, physical and mental health, education and athletics

Kaz Cooke, Real Gorgeous
Fun to read information about personal and cultural issues involving food, weight and body image

Joy Cox, Fat Girls in Black Bodies; Creating Communities of Our Own
Combatting fatphobia and racism to reclaim a space for womxn at the intersection of fat and Black

Jeanette DePatie, The Fat Chick Works Out!
“Fitness that’s fun and feasible for folks of all ages, shapes, sizes and abilities!”

Nancy Ellis-Ordway, Thrive At Any Weight: Eating to Nourish Body, Soul and Self Esteem
Why we have anxiety about food and weight, and what we can do about it.

Renee Engeln, Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women
Cultural pressures and how they affect body image and quality of life

Amy Erdman Farrell, Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in America
Historical analysis of multiple cultural issues regarding body size

Laura Fraser, Losing It
Well researched and written history about the cultural impact of the dieting industry

Rita Freedman, Beauty Bound
——–Body Love
Cultural role of beauty with suggestions for change

Glenn A. Gaesser, Big Fat Lies
Information about weight, health, fitness, and the dangers of dieting

Aubrey Gordon, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat
Research data, commentary on current culture, information about the harmful effects of weight stigma

Susan Greenhalgh, Fat Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat
“…the dangers of today’s epidemic of fat talk to individuals and society at large”

Christy Harrison, Anti-Diet
“Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating”

April Michelle Herndon, Fat Blame: How the War on Obesity Victimizes Women and Children
Cultural aspects and how they affect those who are already marginalized by class, race, age and gender

Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter, Overcoming Overeating
Well written “how to” approach to dealing with binge eating and related problems
—— When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies
Excellent examination of the cultural, social and political pressures on women

Jean Kilbourne, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel
Thought provoking commentary on the way our lives are affected by marketing.

Gina Kolata, Rethinking Thin
“The New Science of Weight Loss – and the Myths and Realities of Dieting”

Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at the Table
Fascinating history of cultural eating patterns in the United States in the last two centuries

Pat Lyons and Debby Burgard, Great Shape
Fitness guide for large women – how to be fit at any size

Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel, Beyond A Shadow Of A Diet
“The therapist’s guide to treating compulsive eating”
——– The Diet Survivor’s Handbook
“60 Lessons in eating, acceptance and self care”

Alicia Mundy, Dispensing with the Truth: The Victims, the Drug Companies, and the Dramatic Story Behind the Battle Over Fen-Phen
Extensively researched account of misleading marketing to the medical community

Carol Emery Normandi and Laurelee Roark, It’s Not About Food
A guide for giving up obsession with food and dieting behaviors; well written, with specific suggestions and exercises.

J. Eric Oliver, Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America’s Obesity Epidemic
Our concern with obesity is more about profit and social prejudice than is it about health

Amy Pershing and Chevese Turner, Binge Eating Disorder: The Journey to Recovery and Beyond
Binge eating may be a reasonable coping response for surviving trauma

Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay (ed) The Fat Studies Reader
A collection of chapters ranging from health and social inequality to popular culture and embodiment

Jon Robison and Karen Carrier, The Spirit and Science of Holistic Health
An interesting new approach to illness, healing, and wellness using the Health at Every Size paradigm

Abigail Saguy, What’s Wrong with Fat?
A cultural sociologist explores the ways that fatness is defined in current society, and the problems with the current understanding

Ellyn Satter, Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense
Resources for any and all questions about children and eating

Sabrina Strings, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
Meticulously researched history of Euro-American ideologies toward fat

Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love
How to push back against the systems of oppression that make money by making us insecure and how to heal our own injuries in the process

Virgie Tovar, You Have The Right To Remain Fat
An intriguing mix of memoir and astute observations of cultural pressures, with an emphasis on the racial and cultural bias beneath fat phobia

Todd Tucker, The Great Starvation Experiment: Ancel Keyes and the Men Who Starved for Science
Fascinating insight into the people and the process

Sondra Solovay, J.D. Tipping the Scales of Justice
Discrimination, prejudice and legal issues

Marilyn Wann, Fat!So? Because You Don’t Have to Apologize for Your Size
Delightful commentary and encouragement about living large in a fat-phobic society

Anthony Warner, The Angry Chef’s Guide to Spotting Bullsh*t in the World of Food: Bad Science and the Truth About Healthy Eating
—The Truth About Fat: Why Obesity is Not that Simple
A chef with a biochemistry degree thoroughly and humorously debunks diet fads

Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
Eating as described by a biological anthropologist

Helpful links

The Association for Size Diversity and Health
https://asdah.org

Dances With Fat  https://danceswithfat.org

Health At Every Size® 101
https://bodyliberationphotos.com/health-at-every-size-haes-101/?fbclid=IwAR0o9XOxA6uTTT4Io8Q8I Jc9e_cDLQgx_m5DhuHTir_abvzYszhKLTAsJfs

The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobe/2014/983495/

How and why weight stigma drives the obesity ‘epidemic’ and harms health
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1116-5

What is Weight Stigma?
https://christyharrison.com/what-is-weight-stigma

Center for Body Image Research and Policy
https://hes.missouri.edu/center-for-body-image-research-policy/

Dr. NEO
https://www.facebook.com/Dr-NEO-148882385520539

HAES Health sheets – Weight neutral information about numerous health concerns
https://haeshealthsheets.com/

More about health concerns, from a registered dietician
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/mobile/folders/15dSypccNhGNyir7a642UZvfgKkHnI196