BODY IMAGE RESOURCES

Throughout many years of shooting boudoir, we've learned that body size and shape has nothing to do with body image, body confidence, or body acceptance. Our body image is determined by our experiences, our caregivers' example, and the messages we're exposed to in the media. The good news is that with some effort, we can change our programming. We can stop the negative self-hate talk that holds us back from living our best lives. Let's get started.

Educational Books

• Intuitive Eating 4th Edition by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
• Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon
• More Than a Body: Your Body is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite & Lindsay Kite
• Anti Diet Revolution by Christy Harrison
• Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand by Linda Bacon & Lucy Aphramor
• Body Kindness: Transform Your Health from the Insight Out- and Never Say Diet Again by Rebecca Scritchfield
• How to Raise an Intuitive Eater by Sumner Brooks & Amee Severson
• What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
• “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon
• The Geode Theory: Chipping Away At Body Image by Teri Hofford
• The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor

Workbooks

• The Intuitive Eating Workbook: 10 Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
• The Body Image Workbook: An Eight- Step Program for Learning to Like your Looks by Thomas F Cash
• Your Body is Not an Apology Workbook by Sonya Renee Taylor
  
• You Just Need to Lose Weight Workbook by Aubrey Gordon

Podcasts

• Food Psych: Christy Harrison
• Don’t Salt My Game with Laura Thomas
• Life: Unrestricted with Meret Boxler
• Maintenance Phase with Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon
• I Weigh with Jameela Jamil

Media

• Shrill on Hulu
• Love, Lizzo Documentary on Max
• i_weigh on Instagram
• Poodle Science on YouTube
• Beauty Industry Debunker, Jessica Defino
  

Questions to Explore

The following questions are for you to ponder or answer in a journal. If anything big comes up for you as you're exploring these questions, please let us know about it by shooting us an email. We want you to have a true understanding of your mindset and body image before we get you in front of a camera. This will help us not only create an amazing photo experience for you, but also help you to work through some past, present, and future concerns surrounding your mindset and body image.

• What is your earliest memory of your body?
• Reflect on a positive experience that you had with your body as a child (how did you like to use it? dancing, playing, climbing, stretching, etc.)
• What are some words that you use to label your body (be as positive, negative, or neutral as you need to - JUST BE HONEST)
• Who did you learn your body image feelings/thoughts from?
• What is something you are grateful that your body does for you NOW?
• What is something that amazes you about your body?
• What is something about your SELF that amazes you?
• Where do you tend to hold stress in your body?
• Do you hold trauma anywhere in your body?
• What life experiences have brought your body to its current physical manifestation? (having a baby, stress, starting a career, divorce, loss, happiness, etc.)
• How do the people you surround yourself with talk about their bodies?

Now give yourself some love for doing the hard work!!