Audiobook4 hours
Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight
Written by Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor, PhD, RD
Narrated by Celeste Oliva
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
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.
Related to Body Respect
Related audiobooks
Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Intuitive Eating Workbook: 10 Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Obesity Paradox: When Thinner Means Sicker and Heavier Means Healthier Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---And the Myths and Realities of Dieting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intuitive Eating Workbook: A Step By Step Program For Weight Loss and Build a Healthy Relationship With Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Understanding Obesity: A New Hope For Weight Loss and Escaping Food Addiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGood Food, Bad Diet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Inside Scoop on Eating Disorder Recovery: Advice from Two Therapists Who Have Been There Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fulfilled: Let Go of Shame, Embrace Your Body, and Eat the Food You Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSupersized Lies: How Myths about Weight Loss Are Keeping Us Fat - and the Truth About What Really Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFoodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Core 3 Healthy Eating Plan: Discover the Simple, Sustainable Way to Lose Weight, Feel Great, and Enjoy Food Freedom! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBody Love: Live in Balance, Weigh What You Want, and Free Yourself from Food Drama Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Volumetrics Eating Plan: Feel Full on Fewer Calories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shift: 7 Powerful Mindset Changes for Lasting Weight Loss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety: Nourish Your Way to Better Mental Health in Six Weeks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 100: Count ONLY Sugar Calories and Lose Up to 18 Lbs. in 2 Weeks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Full: A Life Without Dieting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Smart Fat: Eat More Fat. Lose More Weight. Get Healthy Now. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight--and What We Can Do about It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Kindness: Transform Your Health from the Inside Out—and Never Say Diet Again Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Medical For You
All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Psychology of the Unconscious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health With Facts and Feminism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Body Code: Unlocking Your Body's Ability to Heal Itself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer's World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor: Key Takeaways, Summary & Analysis Included Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gene: An Intimate History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Big Lie: How One Doctor’s Medical Fraud Launched Today’s Deadly Anti-Vax Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chronic Resilience: 10 Sanity-Saving Strategies for Women Coping with the Stress of Illness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Body Respect
Rating: 4.4528303018867925 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
53 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book, sensitive, smart & caring. Full of insight and information
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I may well buy two copies of this, so I have one to re-read and one to lend.
This is sometimes slow to read - because the authors want to be perfectly clear about the evidence on which their assertions are based. The title is the only click-bait going on with this book. Everything else is explained and supported with evidence. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As a thin person who is not 'afraid of fat' or inclined to consider people lazy on account of the amount of fat on their bodies, and moreover a thin person interested in healthier aproaches to medicine and self-care, I felt decidedly invisible to the authors of this book. Their book is understandably focused on overweight people, but the philosophy behind their book would imply that it should apply equally to fat and thin people. So, for people who are overweight or for people responsible for treating or counseling overweight people, this book is an interesting and potentially useful book, but it is definitely not geared to the general public. The concept of self-acceptance and self-respect as a basis for a more balanced approach to health seems pretty logical, and makes one wonder why it comes across as controversial. Certainly following their advice is a fairly low-risk idea for most people, so if they are not entirely correct, their advice at least should cause no harm.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So that was pretty good. A little more self help-y than I was expecting even with all that the title might imply.
Drs. Bacon and Aphramor are interested in making sure that we all are aware of the actual science around health as it relates to weight. Not the ridiculous idea that you can tell someone's health by their weight, but the truth: that health is complex and certainly can't be reduced to the number on the scale. Plenty of very thin people are extremely unhealthy, but most of society doesn't care, because they look the way we expect (want?) people to look. And so we project that this visual must also be associated with what we deem to be good - e.g. health.
It's sort of amazing what we expect from people, and this book is a great reminder of the absurdity involved. We have no comments or scolding of thin people who say 'I can eat whatever I want and not get fat' as they bite into a giant burger. Meanwhile, if a fat person eats literally exactly the same diet as the thin person, society judges them as unhealthy. It's bullshit, and it's super obnoxious. Personally, I think it relates heavily to the need of some people to feel like they are better than others, and this false idea of what equates with health is a great (and by great, I mean shitty) way to do it.
The book provides a whole lot of great evidence to debunk ideas that the diet industry is built on, such as the concept that calories in = calories out, and that everyone is going to process food the exact same way. Eat fewer calories, lose weight, and keep it off. But research shows that's just not the case. One study that was especially vivid in showing this involved a bunch of sets of twins who all ate the exact same food. Within twins there was very little variation, but among sets of twins there were wildly different outcomes. So even though these same people were consuming the exact same number of calories and nutrition, some gained weight and some didn't. And yet this seems SUPER difficult for society as a whole to grasp. People are different, and being fat doesn't mean someone is unhealthy, or eating too much.
The book doesn't, however, pretend that what one consumes doesn't have any affect on one's weight or health. Instead, the authors choose to focus on how food isn't just the sum of its nutrients, and that being mindful about it is what will help us be healthiest. I especially appreciated this idea because it a) disparages the shit notion that any food is objectively 'bad' or 'good' based solely on its nutrition profile and b) recognizes that food actually serves a very valid cultural and social role. Eating a bunch of frozen Jenny Craig dinners might help you lose weight (for a few months before you can it back and then some), but it will also have you missing out on things like sharing some of a beloved family member's dessert that was baked from a recipe passed down from generations. This idea that we should be automatons who just count calories and types of nutrients to get 'healthy' is silly, and it's nice to see it called out as such.
I think this could be a great book for anyone to read, especially one who is tired of seeing the same shit on TV and online about how anyone can (and should) lose weight if they do x, without questioning WHY we expect these folks to lose weight. It's not about their health (because we don't care what thin people eat); it's about having a group to judge and control. And about making money. And that needs to stop.