Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about WeightMainstream 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. |
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acceptance activity Allostatic appetite approach better Billie body fat Body Respect body’s calories carbohydrates cardiovascular disease challenges Chapter Charlotte Cooper chronic compassion consider cultural diabetes diet dieters disease eating disorders effect emotions energy balance evidence example exercise experience fact factors feel focus food choices gain weight genes genetic going habits HAES health behaviors health outcomes healthism hunger impact inequality influence intake Intuitive Eating Janet Journal kids leptin lifestyle Linda Bacon living look lose weight Lucy Aphramor macronutrients meals means metabolic syndrome mind myths NAAFA nutrients nutrition Obesity ourselves overweight paradigm percent phytochemicals protein relationship response resting metabolism risk role self-care setpoint signals social stigma stress studies sugar taste term there’s thin tion twins type 2 diabetes weight and health weight gain weight loss weight regulation weight stigma well-being what’s