Published in 2014
232 pages
Lucy Aphramor, PhD, RD, notably pioneered the use of a health at every size approach in the U.K. National Health Service, developing an eight-week HAES course that is now available internationally through licensed facilitators. Dr. Aphramor is the only U.K. dietitian with publishing and teaching expertise in critical weight science. She is at the forefront of the new international Critical Dietetics movement, where her work blending critical thinking and compassionate self-care is enthusiastically received. Her influence extends to coverage in the popular press, and her reputation as an outspoken scientist gains her interviews across the board from women’s magazines to the broadsheets.
Linda Bacon, PhD, earned her doctorate in physiology, specializing in weight regulation, from the University of California, Davis. She also holds graduate degrees in psychology, specializing in eating disorders and body image, and exercise science, specializing in metabolism, and has professional experience as a researcher, clinical psychotherapist, exercise physiologist and educator. Dr. Bacon is currently an associate nutritionist at the University of California, Davis, and the lead investigator for a clinical research study that evaluates the Health at Every Size program, co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is also a nutrition professor in the biology department at City College of San Francisco. Additionally, she maintains a private practice, advising individuals, health care professionals and institutions on strategies for implementing the Health at Every Size program.
What is this book about?
Mainstream health science has let you down.
Weight loss is not the key to health, diet and exercise are not effective weight-loss strategies and fatness is not a death sentence.
You’ve heard it before: there’s a global health crisis, and, unless we make some changes, we’re in trouble. That much is true—but the epidemic is NOT obesity. The real crisis lies in the toxic stigma placed on certain bodies and the impact of living with inequality—not the numbers on a scale. In a mad dash to shrink our bodies, many of us get so caught up in searching for the perfect diet, exercise program, or surgical technique that we lose sight of our original goal: improved health and well-being. Popular methods for weight loss don’t get us there and lead many people to feel like failures when they can’t match unattainable body standards. It’s time for a cease-fire in the war against obesity.
Dr. Linda Bacon and Dr. Lucy Aphramor’s Body Respect debunks common myths about weight, including the misconceptions that BMI can accurately measure health, that fatness necessarily leads to disease, and that dieting will improve health. They also help make sense of how poverty and oppression—such as racism, homophobia, and classism—affect life opportunity, self-worth, and even influence metabolism.
Body insecurity is rampant, and it doesn’t have to be. It’s time to overcome our culture’s shame and distress about weight, to get real about inequalities and health, and to show every body respect.
