Celebrate Yourself and Your Body During Body Acceptance Week
October 16th – 25th, 2024 is Body Acceptance Week at Stanley Park High School. This important annual event, organized by the school’s Center for Health and Wellness (CHAW), aims to promote self-love, challenge stigma, and provide resources for students and families navigating body image concerns.
This year’s theme is all about body neutrality – the practice of feeling positively, negatively, or even neutrally about your body while still respecting and caring for it. Whether you’re working on body acceptance, trying to heal from diet culture, or simply want to learn more, the FSULIB team has curated a diverse selection of 10 insightful books to add to your reading list.
From memoirs and self-help guides to graphic novels and young adult fiction, these titles explore a range of perspectives on loving the skin you’re in. So dive in, and remember – your body is an incredible, unique vessel, worthy of compassion, respect, and celebration.
Embracing Body Acceptance and Neutrality
Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison
Christy Harrison takes on the multi-billion-dollar diet industry, exposing how it robs us of our time, money, health, and happiness. Drawing on research, personal experience, and patient stories, this book offers a radical alternative to diet culture, helping readers reclaim their bodies, minds, and lives.
The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our bodies and celebrate our collective strength. As we awaken to internalized body shame, we feel inspired to interrupt the systems that perpetuate it, ushering in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love.
Body Kindness: Transform Your Health from the Inside Out, and Never Say Diet Again by Rebecca Scritchfield
This practical, inspirational guide shows you how to cultivate a sense of well-being by learning to love, connect, and care for yourself – mind and body. With exercises and prompts, Body Kindness helps you let go of what you can’t control and embrace the workable, daily steps that fit you best.
Challenging Diet Culture and Weight Stigma
Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand About Weight by Lindo Bacon
Doctors Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor debunk common myths about weight, including the idea that BMI is an accurate health indicator or that weight loss leads to better health. They also explore how poverty, oppression, and inequalities affect our self-worth and even our metabolism.
Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation by Dalia Kinsey
This book is a roadmap to body acceptance and self-care for queer, trans, and BIPOC individuals. Filled with practical eating practices, journal prompts, and mindfulness tools, it’s a guide to throwing out food rules and adopting a self-love-based approach to nourishing your body.
Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith
Sole-Smith lays bare how America’s “childhood obesity epidemic” narrative has perpetuated a crisis of disordered eating and body hatred for kids of all sizes. She offers an alternative framework for parenting around food and bodies, and a path toward a more weight-inclusive world.
Reclaiming Narratives and Celebrating Diverse Experiences
More Than A Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite and Lindsay Kite
Twin sisters and body image researchers Lexie and Lindsay Kite provide an action plan to help you reconnect with your whole self and free yourself from the constraints of self-objectification. Discover the skills you need to reject the narrative that your worth is tied to your appearance.
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
Strings traces the roots of anti-fat bias back over 200 years, showing how fatphobia has long been used as a means of validating race, class, and gender prejudice – especially against Black women. This important work challenges the notion that fat phobia is really about health concerns.
The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce edited by Angie Manfredi
This dazzling collection of art, poetry, essays, and fashion tips centers the diverse voices of fat people, offering a relatable and gift-worthy guide to body image and fat acceptance. Prepare to feel seen, heard, and celebrated in all your glorious fullness.
Inspiring Stories of Self-Discovery and Healing
How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self by Dr. Nicole LePera
Drawing on the latest research, Dr. LePera helps us recognize how adverse experiences and trauma from childhood can keep us stuck in harmful patterns. This empowering guide offers a roadmap for self-healing and reclaiming your authentic, joyful self.
The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses, and Find Your True Well-Being by Christy Harrison
Harrison delves into the persistent issues with the wellness industry, shedding light on its troubling pattern of cultural appropriation, destructive views on mental health, and distrust of conventional medicine. She reimagines our relationship with well-being, providing practical advice for finding true fulfillment.
Engaging with Body Acceptance Week at Stanley Park High
We hope these thought-provoking books inspire you to celebrate your body and embrace body neutrality during this year’s Body Acceptance Week festivities. Be sure to follow @stanleyparkhighschool on social media for updates on all the special events, workshops, and resources being offered.
Remember, your body is an incredible, unique vessel worthy of compassion, respect, and celebration. So dive in, explore these titles, and remember – you are so much more than just an ornament. Your body is an instrument, a vessel for self-expression, and the vehicle that allows you to fully experience this world. Wishing you a happy and empowering Body Acceptance Week!
