Each month, the SELF Well-Read Book Club highlights a timely, delightful, and crucial book on a subject that helps readers live better lives. So far, we’ve covered everything from the politics of running to the state of modern motherhood.
Chrissy King spent years of her life yo-yo dieting. She’d try one fad diet or exercise trend to lose weight, find it unsustainable, leave it behind, and eventually start a new restrictive habit. She repeated this cycle over and over again, justifying it all in the name of being healthy. “But the truth was,” she writes in her new book, “all I really wanted was to shrink my body at whatever cost necessary.”
Sound familiar? King’s story is a classic example of how anti-fatness and diet culture infiltrates so many people’s lives, leading us to believe that we can (and should) manipulate our bodies to “perfection” when all this fruitless pursuit does is leave us trapped. In her new book, The Body Liberation Project, King proposes an alternative way of living: Burn it all down and you can be free. We’re extremely on board with that—and we’re thrilled to announce The Body Liberation Project as our April SELF Well-Read Book Club pick.
Be forewarned: This isn’t your run-of-the-mill body positivity book. (“While the [body-positivity] movement largely focuses on self-love, it fails to acknowledge that it’s much easier for some individuals to love themselves than others,” King writes.) Rather, The Body Liberation Project argues that your body is just a vessel, and trying to control it is not worth your time, happiness, and energy. In a similar vein, King argues that food is more than just fuel: The experience of eating should be full of meaning and joy.
King also dives into the racist origins and undertones of anti-fatness, exploring who is deemed beautiful, what is seen as healthy, and why. The Body Liberation Project is a lesson in how so much of what we’ve been raised to believe about eating, beauty, and bodies is wrong—and if you’re struggling because of it, it’s not your fault. There is another way to live—and with some work, King explains, we can get there.
What’s next?
- Buy the book here.
- Read an excerpt here.
- Check out our recommended reading list below for a collection of SELF articles on diet culture, racism in wellness, and finding freedom in your body.
And some companion reading from SELF:
The basics
On racism, ableism, and weight bias in wellness
Food for thought
Just for you
Liberation
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