Book Review: Breaking Free from Body Shame

Book Overview:

According to author Jess Connolly’s research, 97% of women and 95% of men struggle with their body image. That’s a sad, staggering percentage! In a culture which puts idealistic beauty standards on a pedestal and feeds into the 71 billion dollar diet industry, it’s no wonder we’re all struggling.

In Breaking Free from Body Shame, Jess Connolly dares readers to reclaim their bodies as God’s good creations, rather than seeing them as problems to be fixed or projects to be mastered.

As someone who grew up with a parent who constantly monitored (and criticized) my food and exercise, it’s no surprise that I ended up with disordered eating and orthorexic behaviors. I saw food as something to be earned and exercise as a punishment for my body being bad. While Jesus, in His kindness and mercy, began to shift the way I saw food, exercise, and my body a few years ago, this book felt like a confirmation of what I now know to be true: my body is a good gift from God.

What This Book Does:

The overarching message of Breaking Free from Body Shame is simple: we don’t have to try to make our bodies good; instead, we can treat them as though they’re already good because God made them that way.

Now, Connolly isn’t saying we should never move our bodies and eat only ice cream.

She is saying we can stop seeing the way our bodies look as a measure of our worth.

Despite what diet culture will tell us, the way our bodies look is mostly out of our control. God made us with variety, beauty, and intention. When we all try to fit into a single cultural aesthetic (which is largely photoshopped anyway), we miss out on the variety of His creation and the gift of a body we already have.

When we see our bodies as good, we begin learning what it looks like to treat them as good—something that looks like for each of us. According to Connolly, a great start to this process is finding movement we enjoy that doesn’t feel like a punishment—whether it’s walking, taking a fitness class, or lifting weights. When our motivation is honoring our bodies as gifts from God rather than pushing them or trying to manipulate the way they look, we discover true freedom. We can get sleep and drink water and eat vegetables and move our bodies from a place of freedom, rather than insecurity.

What This Book Doesn’t Do:

It’s important to note that while Breaking Free from Body Shame empowers readers to believe God’s truth about their bodies, it’s focused on repairing body image through a spiritual lens. It doesn’t offer health advice because we’re all made differently, so taking care of our bodies looks different for everyone. (I love this! I’m over the "one size fits all” eating plans or exercise regimens that don’t actually fit most—especially considered that many of these plans are based on disordered eating.) This book isn’t intended as a cure or therapy for eating disorders or body dysmorphia. In those instances, professional help is advisable.

Additional Resources:

As I’ve dismantled my unhealthy body image and false ideas about health, here are several of the resources that helped me care about my health and be kind to my body (because both are possible together!) without perpetuating disordered eating.

Books:
Breaking Free from Body Shame, Jess Connolly
Intuitive Eating, Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison

Instagram Accounts:

Diet Culture Rebel
Real Life Nutritionist
The Nutrition Tea
The Binge Nutritionist