11 Empowering Body Positivity Books by WOC

Being body positive is a yearlong – and lifelong – commitment but it’s especially important during the summer season when more people may feel free to comment on our bodies. In the United States, 56.1 percent of Latinas report experiencing body image issues but are less likely to be diagnosed with eating disorders or body dysphoria because of a lack of access to adequate medical care and a cultural stigma of mental heath. However, whether it’s by embracing our cultural foods or seeking help from a medical professional, there are a myriad of ways we can all become more celebratory of the bodies we were born with. In response to fatphobia and body dysmorphia that’s lasted for generations, there are many women of color writing about their experiences, which is why we decided to put together a list of body positivity books from a diverse array of perspectives and genres. From Chingona by Alma Zaragoza-Petty on the importance of decolonizing our body image to The Self-Love Revolution by body image expert Virgie Tovar, these are some of the best reads by women of color around body liberation and positivity. Read on to learn more about 11 books by female authors of colors you need to read this summer and all year round.

Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina by Rosie Molinary

Hijas Americans by body image and self-acceptance speaker and activist Rosie Molinary is an intimate inside look at what it means to grow up in the U.S. as a Latina. The book features interviews and surveys from more than 500 Latinas from the Caribbean and LATAM while also adding in her own personal experiences with her identity issues. The book also features a broad range of experiences from first, second, and third-generation Latinas who have come of age, caught between the cultures of the U.S. and of their native countries. As an activist who is passionate about self-care in her communities and other marginalized groups, Molinary touches on many topics like body image, beauty standards, ethnic identity, and sexuality from the Latina perspective. Ultimately, this will bring readers an invaluable understanding of the conflicts and triumphs that Latinas experience growing up between two cultures.

Fattily Ever After: A Black Fat Girl’s Guide to Living Life Unapologetically by Stephanie Yeboah

Fattily Ever After is a debut memoir by blogger Stephanie Yeboah who has experienced racism and fatphobia her entire life as a plus-sized Black woman. She details these experiences with vulnerability and intimacy, from being bullied at school, to being objectified, to being humiliated by potential romantic partners. However, as she’s grown up, she’s learned to change the narrative around body image, beauty standards, and self-acceptance in a world where being in a bigger body is subject to unique levels of judgement, discrimination, and oppression. Pulling in personal stories of everyday moments of misogynoir, fetishization, and loneliness, she also excavates the history of how Black women have been treated throughout history and how Black plus-sized women have been marginalized in the media and the body positivity movement. Readers will also find inspirational wisdom, tips, and advice from other Black plus-sized body positivity advocates. This is essential reading for the next generation of Black plus-sized women and all those who will come after in order to learn how to live their lives openly, unapologetically, and confidently.

Chingona by Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Chingona by Mexican American activist, scholar, and podcast host Alma Zaragoza-Petty is the ultimate how-to guide for reclaiming our inner chingona (badass mujer). Using this belief as a foundation, Zaragoza-Petty uses her childhood experiences between Acapulco and Los Angeles to show how embracing the chingona spirit enabled her to speak up, speak out, and advocate for herself in the face of oppression, white supremacy, and colonization. Readers will learn how to use our badass instincts to face trauma, use our pain for good, heal ourselves, and celebrate all the chingonas in our lives. She also discusses body image, how colonization affects the way we view ourselves, and how to decolonize the relationship we have with our bodies through food and community. Most importantly, she reminds us that by healing ourselves, we can start to heal our communities and the rest of the world to fight for dignity, justice, and a chingona spirit for all.

Decolonizing the Body: Healing, Body-Centered Practices for Women of Color to Reclaim Confidence, Dignity, and Self-Worth by Kelsey Blackwell 

Decolonizing the Body by Kelsey Blackwell is a must-read for women of color who are looking for more ways to get in touch with their body. Compared to white women, women of color are subject to distinct forms of oppression, discrimination, physical and sexual violence, generational trauma, and systemic racism. But what many of us don’t know is that it’s not only our current trauma that lives in our minds and bodies; we also carry all the old trauma throughout generations of our families. This book exists to show readers several ways they can free themselves from this trauma, build confidence, and restore their sense of self. Featuring proven and effective body-centered practices like daily rituals and boundary setting, this book offers tools for healing from systemic oppression, trusting in the wisdom of the body, and reconnecting with the self. Other practices include how to listen to what our bodies need, how to strengthen our confidence, and how to create community.

The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color by Virgie Tovar

The Self-Love Revolution by Mexican American writer and body image expert Virgie Tovar is a powerful response to every magazine, movie, or social media post that tries to make us feel like we need to change how we look. From a young age, these images impact how we think about ourselves and how we allow others to treat us. This is especially true for teen girls of color whose media consumption is oversaturated with images of thin, white, and able-bodied people. There may also be pressure from within our own communities that demand us to step up and fit in the box that’s been created for us. This book offers readers ways to question mainstream media, challenge beauty standards, call our diet culture, cultivate tools to push against negative body image and self-hate, cultivate community, and build radical body positivity for ourselves. It’s time for us to give ourselves the unconditional love we deserve.

Fat Angie by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Fat Angie by Mexican American filmmaker and novelist E.E. Charlton-Trujillo follows a young girl named Angie, whose life in Dryfalls, Ohio is a lot. Her sister was captured in Iraq and presumed dead (with Angie being the only one who thinks she’s still alive), her mother can’t be bothered with her, she’s the frequent target of her high school tormentors, and she failed to kill herself in front of a gym full of kids. In the meantime, her therapist has been telling her to count calories instead of eat, causing Angie to hide under a mountain of junk food in an effort to keep the pain away. But everything changes when KC Romance arrives to school and strikes up a friendship with her. Right away, she’s unlike anyone Angie has ever known. She doesn’t see her as Fat Angie and she knows that the package doesn’t always match what’s inside, resulting in a story that’s both entertaining and touching.

The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor 

The Body Is Not an Apology by Black activist and writer Sonya Renee Taylor is a self-help book about radical self-love. As she states in the book, humans are made up of a diverse array of beliefs, morals, and bodies but systems of oppression still thrive off our inability to embrace our differences and love our own bodies. Part anthem, part call to action, this book asks readers to reconnect with the origins of our minds and bodies, as well as celebrate our ever-enduring strength as a collective. By pushing against body shame and choosing body positivity, we inspire others to do the same and interrupt the systems that have gained power by taking advantage and, in some cases, creating the circumstances for shame to exist in the first place. She calls us to join the movement of self-love, creating a more just, equitable, and compassionate world for all of us.

Sensual Faith: The Art of Coming Home to Your Body by Lyvonne Briggs

Sensual Faith by Black spiritual thought leader Lyvonne Briggs calls us to view our bodies and sexualities through the strength of spiritual practices. Throughout the book, Briggs shows us how to practice spiritual wellness in a way that aligns and harmonizes our bodies with pleasure and sexuality. Centering on the traditions of ancient West African spirituality, this is a radically inclusive example of what self-love, compassion, consent, and empathy can look like. Featuring rituals, journal prompts, affirmations, practices, and practical tools, this book shows us how to celebrate our body as home. Readers will also learn about the language of consent

Being in Your Body: A Journal for Self-Love and Body Positivity by Fariha Róisín 

Being in Your Body by Muslim queer Bangladeshi Fariha Róisín is an illustrated journal that’s designed to help cultivate a more healthy, compassionate, and meaningful relationship with our bodies. As opposed to the body shame that’s reinforced to us through media and systemic beauty standards, this book asks us to explore a different way to think about and move in our bodies. Exploring the damage that comparison to others can cause and the false connection between thinness and happiness, this is a must-have tool for building confidence and creating a new, broader definition of beauty. Some special features of the journal include quotes from an array of body-positive advocates and writing prompts.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay 

Hunger by Haitian American writer and educator Roxane Gay documents her emotional and psychological struggles with food, body image, and health. Throughout the book, she explores the tension we often have between desire and denial, self-comfort and self-care. Featuring personal stories and anecdotes from the author, the book takes an intimate look at her past, including an impactful and devastating act of violence, and brings readers along for a ride of self-love and learning how to save herself. Written with honesty, vulnerability, and power, she touches on how to satisfy our cravings for delicious food and how to cultivate a body that is loved and kept safe.

Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul by Evette Dionne

Weightless by Evette Dionne, a Black culture writer and former editor-in-chief of Bitch, takes a look at the minefields that fat Black women are expected to navigate every day of their lives. The book features personal anecdotes from her personal life including experiences of harassment, adolescent self-discovery in online chatrooms, and a diagnosis of heart failure when she was 29 years old. She also looks outward at the world that perpetuates surveillance and control of fat women: health ailments treated like a symptom of weight at the doctor’s office; larger bodies being rejected or fetishized on dating sites; fat characters being the asexual comedic relief on TV. In response, her account attempts to combat deeply and historically held prejudices using her fierce belief in the power of self-love. Exploring topics like friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image, this is a humorous and insightful portrait of a woman working to understand our society, the world we live in, our potential future, and herself.