These books will help you heal your relationship with food
What is your relationship with food like these days? For many of us, the honest answer is “it’s complicated.” Maybe you eat more stress than you’d like to admit, or you’re always following the latest diet. Maybe you’re just spending too much mental energy on food and have a nagging feeling that it should be, well, easier.
If you’re looking for a reset, you can start with some reading: We’re in something of a heyday for books about food and bodies. We asked nine experts in psychology, nutrition and body image for their recommendations. These choices will help you understand why many of us interact with food the way we do, and how you can transition to a healthier way of thinking about food.
Most practitioners we consulted mentioned this bible of intuitive eating. “It’s a classic for a reason,” says Christy Harrison, a registered dietitian and author who hosts the podcast “Rethinking Wellness.”
The authors are dietitians with a bold claim: we are all born knowing how to nourish ourselves, and we run into trouble when we start to trust the voices around us instead of our bodies. They guide readers through the process of unlearning the “diet mentality” and reconnecting with their internal cues about hunger and satisfaction.
Although intuitive eating is somewhat well-known today, the book was truly “groundbreaking” when it was first published in 1995, says Shelly Russell-Mayhew, professor of psychology and director of the Body Image Research Lab at the University of Calgary.
Part intuitive eating guide, part cookbook, “Gentle Nutrition” teaches readers how to care for their bodies through nutrition without strict rules or dietary dogmas. “This is one of the few nutrition books I can recommend with confidence,” says Alissa Rumsey, a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating consultant.
“It’s full of very accessible health and nutrition science information,” Ms. Rumsey added, along with 50 nutrient-packed recipes – without calorie counts or punishingly restrictive ingredient lists.
In this practical follow-up to ‘The Omnivore Dilemma’, journalist Michael Pollan delves deeper into his nutritional mantra: ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” He also provides an elegant critique of “nutritionism,” or the modern, widely accepted idea that the value of food can be reduced to the nutrients that compose it.
It’s that mechanistic view of food that leaves so many of us confused about what to eat, says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition researcher and professor of medicine at Stanford University. Pollan’s book points out shortcomings in this approach and proposes a way of eating where we are “not at the mercy” of complex diets and conflicting headlines, said Dr. Gardner.
Four of our experts endorsed this accessible academic title by sociologist Sabrina Strings; the book “masterfully traces the history of fatphobia and its intersections with anti-black racism,” says Alexis Conason, a clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist.
Dr. Strings frequently argues that the idolatry of thinness in modern society is less rooted in medical science than in racist ideas that emerged during the Enlightenment. “Spoiler alert: It’s not just about health,” said Dr. Conason.
This bestselling exposé from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (and former Times investigative reporter) reveals how the processed food industry manipulates our taste buds and exploits our biology to make us eat foods that make us feel bad. Translation: Polishing off a pack of cookies when you’re barely hungry isn’t a personal moral failure — it’s a carefully crafted outcome.
Understanding this can help us get rid of some of the guilt we have around food, said Dr. Gardner. “It’s not just that I don’t have willpower,” he said, explaining that “the food industry does this on purpose.”
Writer and podcaster Aubrey Gordon applies a social justice lens to our treatment of people living in larger bodies. And she shows how the way we handle food is less about our health than about our culturally indoctrinated fear of getting fat.
Challenging the default aversion to fatness is a crucial step if we hope to find a less fraught perspective on food, says Virginia Ramseyer Winter, director of the Center for Body Image Research and Policy at the University of Missouri. “If we can come to terms with our own internal anti-fatness, we can approach food differently,” said Dr. Winter. Plus, she added, Gordon is a “really brilliant writer.”
Jenna Hollenstein is a nutritional therapist and meditation teacher. (She also shared suggestions for this list.) Here she leans on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, a classical Buddhist teaching, as a framework for eating with satisfaction, ease, and joy.
The awareness and curiosity cultivated through mindfulness can support us on our food healing journey, Ms. Rumsey said. It is a fruitful path – and we do not have to walk it alone.