Learn how to ditch dieting, improve your body image, start Intuitive Eating, and be more body and fat positive with these anti-diet books.
If you didn’t know this about me, I’m a reader. I’ve loved reading ever since I was a child. I remember this Little House on the Prairie boxed set that I cherished and held on to long after I had read all the books.
I love that reading allows me to escape, relax, learn, and discover new ideas. While I still love to hold a book in my hand and read, I go back and forth between listening to audio books and reading an actual book. I had a Kindle Fire for awhile and read e-books, but I still love an old fashioned book or listening to a book while I’m walking or doing the dishes.
When I first began learning about the anti-diet movement, fat positivity, body positivity, body neutrality, and Intuitive Eating, I was just following people on social media and getting snippets of information. I was really resonating with the messages I was reading, and I wanted to know more.
Once I ordered one book on Amazon, I started getting recommendations for similar books. You know how it works. Each book I read really opened my eyes to the damage that diet culture does and how the beauty ideal is perpetuated by the patriarchy.
Many of these books also give advice on how to begin healing your body image, creating a more peaceful relationship with food, and getting out of the dieting cycle.
I also shared my always growing “Still Want to Read” list. I always have a long list of books I want to read, so I pulled out all the books on that list about body image, Intuitive eating, and fat positivity.
My Anti-Diet Reading List:
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
The Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon
The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Shrill by Lindy West
Dietland by Sarai Walker (fiction)
Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life by Kelsey Miller
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women by Renee Engeln
My Anti-Diet Still Want to Read List:
Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison
The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should be Easy by Caroline Dooner
Just Eat It: How Intuitive Eating Can Help You Get Your Shit Together Around Food by Laura Thomas
Hungry: Trust Your Body and Free Your Mind Around Food by Tara Whitney
Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight by Linda Bacon
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
What’s Wrong with Fat by Abigail Saguy
Am I Ugly? One Woman’s Journey to Body Positivity by Michelle Elman
Two Whole Cakes: How to Stop Dieting and Learn to Love Your Body by Lesley Kinzel
embody: Learning to Love Your Unique Body (and quiet that critical voice!) by Connie Sobczak
Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body by Kate Harding
Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture by Amy Erdman Farrell
Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass by Jes Baker
Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight — and What We Can Do about It by Harriet Brown
*This post contains affiliate links for these books. When you click the link and make a purchase, I earn a small commission.
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