Are you at the start of your body positivity journey? Looking for books to help you improve your body image? You came to the right place. Seriously. This is a post I’ve meant to write for years. It’s a question that comes up time after time. Where do I start? I want to improve my body image, but where do I begin?

For me, the place to begin has always been in books. Of course, books and Google these days, but you get the point. Some of them are about the history and politics of fat activism, a place you should start if you want the roots of the modern body positivity movement. Others are more personal tellings of experience with having a body seen as different.

 

All of them will change your mind.

 

My story with body image started with blogging. For the decade that followed my entry into high school, my only goal year after year was to lose weight. Lose MORE weight. To be smaller, to fit in better, to change. Can you picture that? An entire life dedicated to something that matters very little? Maybe you can imagine it, and that’s why you’re here. Perhaps you don’t want your where you see yourself in 5 years goal to be THINNER. For me, being challenged in my thinking shifted something in me.

Even as I exercised or dieted (on this blog, I know it was a thing), I was tearing down this idea I had. A model that ignored who I am as a person and focused my attention on my body and outward appearance. But one day, the real question appeared; am I just a body or a pretty face? Is that the value I bring to this world, or am I more?

If I felt that I was more than how attractive someone else found me, why are all my efforts so focused on my outward appearance? WHY am I handing over this one life of mine to this hamster wheel? In answering that question for myself, everything changed.

 

Because, of course, I’m more than a body. You are too.

 

My value isn’t in how attractive someone finds me or how beautiful ‘they’ think I am. My worth isn’t in this body at all. And, my friend, neither is yours. So, if you came here as a way to start to change your mind about that. To improve your body image and see yourself as a whole person, you are in the right place. We begin here because maybe one day, that question will make it crystal clear for you too. And the switch will be switched. You’ll be forever changed, and bad days will be bad days. Good things, big love for yourself, will be yours.

 

Here it is—my list of books to read to improve your body image.

 

{I have used Amazon AU to link to the books listed below to easily reference them all in one place. Click the book cover, and a new window will open. However, if you can, please contact and purchase any books through your local bookshop or directly from the author. They need us to support them now more than ever.}

 

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Happy Fat

 

LandWhale

 

Health at Every Size

 

Body Image Warrior

 

So Here I Am: Speeches by Great Women to Empower and Inspire

You have the right to remain fat! 

 

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Love Your Body

 

Say Hello 

 

Fat Activism

 

The Self-Love Revolution

 

The Fat Studies Reader

 

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman 

 

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Hunger 

 

The Rise & Reign of the Unruly Woman

 

Body Positive Power

 

The Beauty Myth

 

Things No One will tell the Fat Girls

The body is not an Apology

 

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Want more from me on this topic?

 

In the past, I’ve talked about how I improved my body image and confidence, and this dealt with ‘feedback’ on this blog. So, if you’re interested in that, head to the post. It even has a video from the Suger Coat It YouTube channel if watching is more your thing. Finally, you can run into the Confident You archives or search for the keywords that interest you in the sidebar (it will be under this post on mobile).

I know that undoing what we were conditioned to believe about ourselves takes time and work. You can’t wake up one morning and forget everything ‘they’ told you. But, that said, don’t let that get you down because the upside of that is that YOU are in control now. What you say goes. Start rebuilding your body image; start now.

 

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