More Than a Body is a welcome salve for those who are weary of the internal war with their body. Through their groundbreaking body image resilience model, Lexie and Lindsay offer many practical ways to make peace with your body, showing how body image disruptions can be a pathway for healing, rather than provoke a descent into a shame spiral. Ultimately, readers will find real solutions to reunite with their whole, embodied selves.”
—Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, co-author of Intuitive Eating
“Loving yourself is easier said than done. I’ve been trying for years. There’s more to it than following a bunch of body-positive Instagram accounts or saying nice things to yourself in the mirror. Thankfully, Lindsay and Lexie have written a step-by-step guide on how to dismantle self-objectification and develop a positive body image. This is the perfect book for someone who wants to change their outlook but doesn’t know where to start.”
—Nikki Glaser, comedian, TV host, and host of the podcast You Upwith Nikki Glaser
“As an expert immersed in this field for decades, it is rare that I come across writing that causes me to reflect differently on my own body—but More Than a Body does so powerfully. The Kite sisters’ work is not trite self-help or body positivity clichés; it is masterfully crafted research and real-life experience that represents a crucial step forward in our culture’s understanding of bodies and beauty ideals. The world needs this book.”
—Lindo Bacon, PhD, researcher and author of Radical Belonging, Body Respect, and Health at Every Size
“Lindsay and Lexie are the wise, thoughtful, patriarchy-smashing older sisters that every girl and woman needs in their life. In More Than a Body, they meticulously dissect the deluge of messaging that says we should tie our worth to our appearance—and then they blow all of it apart. They inspire us all to imagine what more we can be and what more we can do when we are able to take up all the space we need in this world.”
—Virginia Sole-Smith, author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America
“Lindsay and Lexie have a way of weaving you back through your own experiences, but this time, with an entirely new lens on the why. Packed with facts, science, and the truth about the distortions in media, this book brought me feelings of purpose, safety, and the good kind of desire to fight when it comes to existing in a body in today’s world. Lindsay and Lexie tell stories many of us could have written ourselves and unpack just how good and okay we are and have always been.”
—Sarah Nicole Landry, writer, The Birds Papaya
“This book could save your life. In a lively and engaging style, Lindsay and Lexie discuss the grave harm caused by self-objectification and offer remedies that encourage resilience. A most welcome addition to the literature on body image.”
—Jean Kilbourne, feminist activist, media critic, author, and creator of the film series “Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women”
★ 2020-11-17
A pertinent study of the countless, ever present misconceptions about female body image and why these delusions need to change.
Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to modern culture is aware of the rampant objectification of women’s bodies, which has become even more prevalent and insidious with the expanding reach and scope of social media outlets. In their attempts to obtain an “ideal” weight or body type, women embark on often fruitless diet, exercise, and beauty routines. Kite and Kite, identical twin doctors whose physical attributes have been scrutinized by others and each other all their lives, provide refreshingly straightforward advice to help women let go of impossible goals and learn to love their bodies regardless of their outward appearances. They provide engaging arguments against comparing oneself to the images on social media, and they point out the problems with relying too much on the body mass index metric. “Other ways to evaluate our own health (often with the help of a medical professional) include measuring internal indicators like heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, blood lipids, and respiratory fitness,” they write. “Blood tests can reveal much more about a person’s metabolic health than their dress size can.” With the authors’ guidance and a commitment to self-acceptance, women will be able to ditch yo-yo dieting and costly beauty regimens. Perhaps more importantly, they will find the confidence to avoid jealous comparisons and even leave abusive relationships. “When you know…that you are more than a body,” they write, “you will find that your sense of self, empowerment, and life possibilities are expanding. You will find out that the path to fulfillment and achieving your personal potential is bigger and better than simply forcing your body to fit a perfect mold.”
A fresh interpretation of a simple yet powerful lesson about self-liberation.
