Recommended Reading
Kim Chernin, The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness
This book is at once a personal and intellectual reflection on the depth of obsession in our culture over food, weight, and body image. A transformative read.
Susie Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue
Another classic that helps women discover that what feels a solitary suffering is connected to a cultural epidemic.
Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
This book is just a plain good read, exploring being an eater in this world of complex food systems. Filled with facts and stories, in the end Pollan encourages us to stay close to home and close to the land, keeping our diet open-ended. His credo: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. There you have it!
Carol Emery Normandi and Laurelee Roark, Over It: A Teen’s Guide to Getting Beyond Obsessions with Food and Weight
From Over It, this list of suggestions for parents to support eating disordered children is also applicable to practitioners when working with eating disordered patients:
Have compassion for yourself, your child, and your family.
Educate yourself.
Get support for yourself and your child.
Model self-love and acceptance.
Stop unnecessary dieting.
Support your child’s natural physiological cues of hunger and fullness.
Give your child the responsibility to select his/her own food.
Teach self-esteem from within.
Help your child identify, express, and resolve feelings.
Be an activist in your community.
Christina Sell, Yoga from the Inside Out: Making Peace with the Body through Yoga
This book uses the practice of Anusara yoga to help readers discover that each of us is enough and just right exactly as we are. The practice teaches self-acceptance and joy.
Ronna Kabatznick, The Zen of Eating
This book introduces readers to Buddhist precepts and navigating The Middle Way, through their relationships with food.
Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter, When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies
This book encourages women to feed themselves on demand and to attempt the radical act of accepting their bodies at any size.
Patricia Foster, ed., Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul
This collection includes essays on various types of body issues, from disordered eating to cancer to aging to injuries. Especially relevant to the topic are essays by Pam Houston and Sallie Tisdale.
Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
This cookbook/manifesto/research tome disseminates information and recipes inspired by the whole food nutrition of the Weston Price Foundation, including fermented food, whole raw dairy, grass fed meat and the importance of high-quality fats.
Sandor Katz, Wild Fermentation
Another information-filled cookbook about using fermented foods in the diet for health and good taste
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
In her characteristically entertaining and insightful writing, Kingsolver tells the reader about her family’s experiment to grow all their own food for a year and, in the telling, shares a lot of information about the local food movement.
Julia Ross, The Diet Cure
This is a fantastic book in which Julia Ross presents a clear plan for using nutrition and nutritional supplementation for physiologically treating disordered eating patterns. Although it is accessible to the layperson, I would particularly recommend this for practitioners. People who are suffering from obsessive, impulsive food issues could find the diet-book tone to be possibly triggering to compulsive behaviors, though they will also find it useful.
Susun Weed, Healing Wise: Wise Woman Herbal
Master herbalist Susun Weed offers empowering and practical herbal advice from the Wise Woman tradition. This is a delightful book for herbalists and laypeople alike. Susun communicates in the voices of the plants, making for an entertaining read. Particularly helpful for those struggling with food are her nourishing and tasty recipes for incorporating important herbs into the diet.
This book is at once a personal and intellectual reflection on the depth of obsession in our culture over food, weight, and body image. A transformative read.
Susie Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue
Another classic that helps women discover that what feels a solitary suffering is connected to a cultural epidemic.
Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
This book is just a plain good read, exploring being an eater in this world of complex food systems. Filled with facts and stories, in the end Pollan encourages us to stay close to home and close to the land, keeping our diet open-ended. His credo: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. There you have it!
Carol Emery Normandi and Laurelee Roark, Over It: A Teen’s Guide to Getting Beyond Obsessions with Food and Weight
From Over It, this list of suggestions for parents to support eating disordered children is also applicable to practitioners when working with eating disordered patients:
Have compassion for yourself, your child, and your family.
Educate yourself.
Get support for yourself and your child.
Model self-love and acceptance.
Stop unnecessary dieting.
Support your child’s natural physiological cues of hunger and fullness.
Give your child the responsibility to select his/her own food.
Teach self-esteem from within.
Help your child identify, express, and resolve feelings.
Be an activist in your community.
Christina Sell, Yoga from the Inside Out: Making Peace with the Body through Yoga
This book uses the practice of Anusara yoga to help readers discover that each of us is enough and just right exactly as we are. The practice teaches self-acceptance and joy.
Ronna Kabatznick, The Zen of Eating
This book introduces readers to Buddhist precepts and navigating The Middle Way, through their relationships with food.
Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter, When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies
This book encourages women to feed themselves on demand and to attempt the radical act of accepting their bodies at any size.
Patricia Foster, ed., Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul
This collection includes essays on various types of body issues, from disordered eating to cancer to aging to injuries. Especially relevant to the topic are essays by Pam Houston and Sallie Tisdale.
Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
This cookbook/manifesto/research tome disseminates information and recipes inspired by the whole food nutrition of the Weston Price Foundation, including fermented food, whole raw dairy, grass fed meat and the importance of high-quality fats.
Sandor Katz, Wild Fermentation
Another information-filled cookbook about using fermented foods in the diet for health and good taste
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
In her characteristically entertaining and insightful writing, Kingsolver tells the reader about her family’s experiment to grow all their own food for a year and, in the telling, shares a lot of information about the local food movement.
For practitioners:
Julia Ross, The Diet Cure
This is a fantastic book in which Julia Ross presents a clear plan for using nutrition and nutritional supplementation for physiologically treating disordered eating patterns. Although it is accessible to the layperson, I would particularly recommend this for practitioners. People who are suffering from obsessive, impulsive food issues could find the diet-book tone to be possibly triggering to compulsive behaviors, though they will also find it useful.
Susun Weed, Healing Wise: Wise Woman Herbal
Master herbalist Susun Weed offers empowering and practical herbal advice from the Wise Woman tradition. This is a delightful book for herbalists and laypeople alike. Susun communicates in the voices of the plants, making for an entertaining read. Particularly helpful for those struggling with food are her nourishing and tasty recipes for incorporating important herbs into the diet.
