8 Books That Preach the Gospel of Health at Every Size

I first read this book early on in the pandemic, and I read it again this past January. Because I needed to remind myself that diets are bullshit.

So, unlike The Flex Diet, which was a diet masquerading as a lifestyle change, The F*ck It Diet is a take-down of the diet industry, inspired by the Health at Every Size movement. The book opens with a science lesson on why diets don’t work, moves into a history lesson on where diet culture comes from, and then shows a better way: a way in which we let go of what bodies are “supposed to” look like and just…live our lives? Enjoy food? Don’t feel guilty about the fact that we ate Nutella with a spoon this morning? I love this book and I bought myself a copy for keepsies and I’ll probably read it again when I find myself falling in thrall once again to the messages of fat-shaming doctors and lifestyle plans and jumpsuits that are clearly made for tall, willowy women.

Dooner name-drops Bacon in her book so, of course, I had to read this one next. In it, Bacon introduces readers to the Health at Every Size movement that Dooner’s book is grounded in, really digging deep into the research around health and weight loss and the correlations that do and do not exist. They then unpack what it means to let go of our attachment to weight as a marker of health and, instead, figure out what it really means to make healthy choices that are right for us.

After reading Bacon’s book, I began to feel that I was on A Journey. So I picked up Tovar’s book, which I had actually read for the first time back in 2019. You Have the Right to Remain Fat is a quick gulp of a read in which Tovar delves into the racist and classist origins of fatphobia and diet culture. She tells of finding her people within the fat activism community and emphasizes that we all have the right to remain fat, no matter what the culture tells us. Also, she has a retreat called Camp Thunder Thighs and I now daydream about hanging out with Tovar IRL, working through my internal agita, jigglecizing, journaling, and making friends for life. (P.S. Tovar is also the author of The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color.)

This may seem like an odd one to include. This book is about so much more than just weight, and it delves into the sexual assault that was the impetus for Gay’s initial weight gain. It’s also a very personal book that shares the messy ups and downs of life as someone who is grappling with her weight. I loved every bit of it, even as it left me an emotional wreck. But what I most appreciated was Gay’s acknowledgment that knowing how ridiculous fatphobia is doesn’t make it any easier to love one’s body.

This one is a much more recent read. It reiterates a lot of the research and history included in both The F*ck It Diet and Health at Every Size but then goes even deeper into the ways in which diet culture steals your time, money, well-being, and happiness. After getting all of that out of the way, Harrison shows readers what life can look like after leaving diet culture behind, from all the feels you may experience to what it means to eat intuitively to the dangers of labeling food as “good” or “bad.”

This one is another recent read. It gives readers all the dirty details on how dieting actually makes us gain weight. What sets this book apart from the other titles on this list are the sections on mindful eating: what it actually means, how to practice it, and how to leave obsolete beliefs about body size behind.

This is the third reread on my list. Clearly, I’ve been in need of some sort of divine intervention. Similarly to Tovar’s book, the title is a rallying cry. And the contents? It’s not about diet culture so much as it’s about fatphobia and indoctrinated body shame, and about how the best way to combat these things is through radical self-love. And again, radical self-love feels beyond my grasp in this moment. But Taylor’s writings on the systemic issues that perpetuate body shame and oppression are essential.

And finally, this is the book I’m reading now. After reading through all of the research and all of the history, all of the alternatives and all of the mildly prescriptive lessons, I wanted to read about someone who had already taken that journey. And this book is that, from someone whose own struggles feel incredibly relatable to me. In her book, Miller tells of how she reached a point where she realized that a lifetime of dieting was never going to make her happy. So, she hires an intuitive eating coach, learns how to exercise sustainably, and comes to embrace the mindset behind Health at Every Size.