Body Image Inside Out

Body Image Inside Out (publication day 10/31) by Deb Schachter MSW & Whitney Otto MA, PCC is a worthwhile addition to the self-help books that already exist on body image and healing in the current world we live in.

I was first impressed when the book began with a note on language–the use of the word “fat”–and the limitations of working on our internal body image when anti-fat bias is so pervasive as to be unnoticeable and weight stigma against people of a higher weight is the real problem.

While we focus on the internal experience of “feeling fat,” we want to acknowledge that there are external realities facing people in larger bodies: biased medical care, seating that doesn’t accommodate all bodies, and cruel body commentary to name a few. We realize that no degree of internal body image work will alter the external world’s anti-fat bias. What we are hoping to do in this book is to create language and strategies for people in all bodies to feel that our bodies are a safe place to inhabit.

The authors have filled the book with their own stories of their own body image, and that of clients they’ve worked with, along with journaling exercises and inspiring quotes. They focus on curiosity as a means of uncovering the feelings that make us dissatisfied with our bodies, along with where those feelings may have come from in our pasts.

One aspect of this book I’ve not seen before, and I’ve been reading body image books for a very long time. . . since the early 1990s . . . is the relationship between clothing and body image, and the origins of dissatisfaction with what’s in our closets, despite objectively having plenty of things to wear.

Sometimes not knowing what to wear is really about not knowing how to show up to a difficult conversation, circumstance or event.

I highly recommend Body Image Inside Out for anyone who is tired of going down the spiral of feeling bad about the way they look. The authors have done a nice job of developing concrete strategies for improving the most important relationship that any of us have–the relationship with ourselves! While not explicitly fat-positive, they’ve done a good job at acknowledging the range of privilege people of different sizes have and the journaling exercises and strategies they describe can be used by people of any size.

While fixing one’s relationship with their body image may seem like a shallow exercise, I think it’s the first thing we need to do in order to change the world to start to eradicate diet culture. Because only when we are in sync with ourselves and our bodies, no matter what size they are, can we begin to look outward and change everything else.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free e-Galley in exchange for an honest review.