I have retired from the fields of weight science and “Health at Every Size”.*

Retirement Letter/ Career Pivot

Below, I share some of my contributions to the HAES movement.

Not previously released

BMI Cutoffs are Bad Medicine – High BMI Individuals Deserve Access to Total Knee Replacement Surgery
Opening the Gates to “Health at Every Size”
Women’s March 2020, The Fat Manifesto (Video)

This web page provides links to work relevant to health and weight. They may not represent current perspective. More current contributions to the HAES movement can be found:

The [Missing] HAES Files

Sometimes it’s a life experience that rocks your world.
Sometimes it’s a lecture. Sometimes it’s a teacher’s words.
And sometimes a video (or four) changes how you think forever.

Louise Adams, M.A., Clinical Psychologist, Treat Yourself Well
Watch The Body Manifesto Video Series

Featured Resources

Resources by Audience

HAES Principles

This excerpt from Body Respect describes how health professionals can best educate, inspire and support clients.
The Health at Every Size Manifesto, reproduced from Linda's groundbreaking book. Summarizes hot topics and the need for a paradigm shift. A must-have for everyone's library.
The long road to the 2011 American Dietetic Association's Annual Meeting (FNCE) debate between Dr. Linda Bacon advocating for a HAES approach and Dr. John Foreyt promoting the conventional anti-obesity approach.
The problem is not just that contrarian voices aren’t heard in articles about weight, it’s that few journalists recognize those voices even exist. Let's challenge journalists to challenge their assumptions and deliver the full story on weight.
Governmental policies and programs, such as certain provisions in the Affordable Care Act as well as anti-obesity campaigns, can help spread fat stigma and prejudice in the workplace resulting in harm to employees.
Dump worksite obesity prevention programs. Here's a step-by-step plan to challenge stigmatizing messages in your company, and propose criteria for more respectful work places.
Research refutes conventional views on weight and the value of prescriptions for dieting/weight loss; focus should be on health behaviors, not physical attributes.
Linda Bacon's inspiring vision of the path to a more just and compassionate world, where all bodies are respected.
Public health interventions promoting weight-loss fail to account for "social determinants" such as socioeconomic status and are not scientifically sound. The stress resulting from stigmatization in the name of health causes ill health.
Lindo revisits their first book, Health at Every Size, which was written over a decade ago, and expresses how they have personally and professionally evolved since that time.
Linda Bacon gets real about her journey, what "converts" people to HAES perspective, and connections between the personal and the political, with special attention to gender.
A little tentative and skeptical at first, Atchka asks some hard questions that eventually bring him on board with HAES.
We lose out when we view life through a weight lens. It's not just misinformed, but damaging. Reconsider the evidence. Change your paradigm. Regain your self-trust and joy.
Bacon speaks out on how weight-loss efforts are statistically futile—and how you can boost your health big time without dropping a pound.
Motivating good self-care through attention to health behaviors - and dropping the weight focus.
Book trailer for Health at Every Size. Summarizes the book and provides practical strategies to help adopt a Health at Every Size approach in clinical practice.
Book trailer for Health at Every Size. Discusses the problems of a weight-centered approach to health and the basic tenets of the new paradigm, Health at Every Size. Inspires.
This will inspire you. You can live in a body you love and eating can be fun and effortless... much more fun and effective than dieting! Welcome to Health at Every Size.
(Requires free login.) This podcast challenges assumptions about weight and health and discusses the evidence showing a Health at Every Size approach is more effective than a weight-focused approach for clinical care.
The book Body Respect is changing the weight discourse and has galvanized the body positive movement. Learn how and why in this engaging introduction.
This is the premiere article that has up-ended thinking about weight. Includes all the arguments that support a paradigm shift, meticulously referenced. In academic voice.

Eating / Dieting

You can learn how to reset your weight regulation system and achieve your healthiest weight simply and enjoyably without thinking about calories or dieting.
This podcast challenges the assumptions that diet and physical activity lead to long-term weight loss and suggests a focus on intuitive eating, enjoyable movement, and other self-care.
Dieting is seductive, but it doesn't deliver on its promises. Learn why body trust is more successful.
Let's face the facts: we don’t know of healthy methods that result in sustained weight loss. Consider the evidence.
Attuned eating is more effective than dieting. Read why.
Prescribing weight loss to black women is ineffective, damaging and ignores barriers to their health, write Lindo and Sabrina Strings, in this special edition of Scientific American.
Description of the debate between Dr. Lindo Bacon and Dr. John Foreyt on the topic of size acceptance vs. the conventional weight reduction paradigm at the 2011 American Dietetic Association conference.
Contemporary nutrition education does more harm than good. Here's an analysis, and a prescription for change. Co-authored with Dr. Lucy Aphramor.
This heartfelt letter to a Washington Post journalist exposes the pain behind the drive to lose weight, and the hope and freedom that can come from dumping the diet mentality and trusting ourselves.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics asked for response to their offensive weight recommendations. They got it! Bacon provides a convincing argument to discourage dieting.
“Linda Bacon, chatting with us about the process of beginning to accept your body, the reason dieting doesn’t work, how to deal with feelings of shame, and more.”
Too many of us have come to view food as a blanket for our emotions, numbing them as we turn to food to provide the love and comfort we crave. But food doesn't "fix" feelings. Learn how to best take care of yourself.
Dr. Linda Bacon joins Marlo on Blog Talk Radio to discuss the biggest myths about dieting, weight loss and "obesity." Groundbreaking research the diet industry does NOT want you to hear.
“Health experts” are sending incorrect and destructive messages about the relationship between weight and wellness. Linda Bacon and Amee Severson call them out in this hard hitting piece in Scientific American, replete with links to verifying research.
Use this journal to monitor how hunger and satisfaction manifest in your body. (Description for use can be found in the book.)
Diets. Don’t. Work. Even when we call them a “lifestyle change.” For so, so many reasons. Linda explains why.
This article will inspire you to dump the guilt and shame often associated with holiday eating, let go of those New Year's diet resolutions, and discover a much more effective - and effortless - way to manage your weight.
Calorie monitoring won't help you to lose weight - and it may just backfire. Letting go of the food rules is much more effective.
Resist the temptation to view weight loss attempts and dieting as self-care. Learn how to better support positive body image and self-care behaviors.
How are behaviors affect our weight is extremely individual, and whatever you did to lose weight may not be helpful for someone else. Learn how you can use your experience to help, not harm.
Maintaining a weight that is healthy for your body can be effortless.
You can better support good health by switching the focus from weight to health. Change the paradigm: Obesity treatment/prevention is harmful, but improved health behavior goals support people of all sizes.

Health Concerns / Diseases

Weight loss supplements come with some pretty messy side effects and no long-term evidence of safety or efficacy. Read this before you invest (again).
With more than 90 possible side effects including death, bariatric surgery is not the Holy Grail of weight loss. Learn what the "experts" aren't telling us. A must-read for people considering surgery.
Joint pain? Prescribed movement is more effective medical care than prescribed weight loss for ALL people with orthopedic concerns.
A letter that asks friends and family to support and love you as you are not as they wish you were.
In this foreward to Ingrid Kollak's Yoga XXL: A Journey to Health for Bigger People, Dr. Linda Bacon shows that size is no barrier to enjoying great health and satisfying physical activity.
Published in Scientific American, this calls out "health experts” for sending incorrect and destructive messages about the relationship between weight and wellness.
The Health at Every Size approach for Diabetes Management is introduced, including tips for switching from a "diet" mentality to intuitive eating. Make food enjoyment your goal, not your fear.
Labeling obesity a disease pathologizes physical appearance rather than identifying illness. An excerpt from Linda's newsletter.
Many diseases get blamed on weight, with weight loss proposed as the solution. Here's another framing that will be much more helpful in healing.
Combine the fact that bariatric surgery is among the highest-paying surgical specialties with the vulnerability of desperate patients, and it's just a setup for disaster.
"I'm just concerned about their health." How many times have you heard this? Linda Bacon and Melissa Fabello help you understand what is really being said and why its not helpful.

Childhood Obesity/Weight Concerns

Michelle Obama: I'm with you in wanting to improve the health of children in the U.S. through improved nutrition and physical activity, but let's not do it on the backs of the fat kids or with misguided measures like BMI.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics asked for response to their offensive weight recommendations. They got it! Bacon provides a convincing argument to discourage dieting.
An excerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, this will help you instill a sense of agency for your kids, and steer you away from trying to control what they eat. They can take care of themselves! Starts halfway down pg 1.
Anti-obesity campaigns, including BMI "report-cards," are damaging and ineffective. Learn how to best inspire good health habits for your students.

Resilience

A behind-the-scenes description of the challenge in speaking truth to power in nutrition education, and a rally call for community building and revolution in hateful times.
Destabilizing the status quo of size acceptance can come with some uncomfortable consequences, but using the power of resilience can help advocates grow and become stronger.
Linda ends this inspiring and compassionate post with "final words to our fat ambassadors: Yes, You’re Fat. It’s Okay. Say It Loud. Or Quiet. Own It. You’re bigger than your detractors, in ways far more important than physical size."
Dr. Linda Bacon reflects on her experience as a debate speaker at the 2011 American Dietetic Association's annual Conference. Provides hope and inspiration for managing resistance and developing resilience.
A candid interview with Dr. Linda Bacon. Discusses motivation, handling resistance, and resilience.
Linda and Lucy get personal about our journey to Health at Every Size. Touches on self-acceptance, self-compassion, and resilience.

Weight Stigma

Being less likely to be hired or get promotions, being paid less, receiving less adequate medical treatment, being socially excluded, bullied and targeted in derogatory comments: these are the consequences of the "war against obesity".
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics asked for response to their offensive weight recommendations. They got it! Bacon provides a convincing argument to discourage dieting.
Hounding people to lose weight is not just ineffective, it's damaging. People make better self-care choices when they start from body appreciation, not from a drive to change their body.
Dropping a weight focus runs counter to much of what we're taught as health professionals. But here's why you should listen to the naysayers anyway.
Real harm is being done due to the focus on fat/weight loss/size as the prerequisite for health. Fat stigma is the real problem causing ill health.
“Health experts” are sending incorrect and destructive messages about the relationship between weight and wellness. Linda Bacon and Amee Severson call them out in this hard hitting piece in Scientific American, replete with links to verifying research.
Evidence in support of ending weight discrimination in the workplace.
Using obesity fears as a rallying call has damaging consequences. Foodies, invite fat people to the table so we can all advocate for good food.
Linda Bacon talks to Flaunt Performance about Health at Every Size, research on health and weight, and discrimination.
Cans HBO's documentary series, Weight of the Nation. The real enemy is the stigmatization of fat/weight. The solution? Change the focus to promoting good self-care for everyone, regardless of size.
Bacon's testimony in support of adding weight as a protected category in Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law.
There should be more Weight justice in the Food justice movement.
Change the paradigm: Make health promotion your platform. Obesity treatment and prevention messaging is harmful.
Tune out the loud "everyone knows" claims about obesity, shape and diet and challenge the health "experts". It's our obsession over body fat that s a costly, crippling threat to health and well-being.

Thin Privilege

Thinner people benefit from discrimination against larger people. This simple discussion helps readers understand responsible use of "thin privilege."
In this chapter in the Fat Pedogogy Reader, Bacon, O'Reilly and Aphramor discuss how “thin privilege” is maintained and identify strategies through which those of us with thin privilege can make responsible use of privilege.
Drawing on her personal experience and observations of internalized oppression and thin privilege, Linda Bacon identifies stumbling blocks to fat acceptance and strategies for personal empowerment and effecting change in others. Keynote talk, NAAFA.

Downloads and Tools

Print this handy card to remind you of some surprising myths and truths about weight. A great present for the uninitiated!
Print this handy card to keep you inspired and mindful of self-care.
In this chapter in the Fat Pedogogy Reader, Bacon, O'Reilly and Aphramor discuss how “thin privilege” is maintained and identify strategies through which those of us with thin privilege can make responsible use of privilege.
A Health at Every Size classic: A pledge to read and sign and keep you inspired and on track.
Learn more about Linda and what led her to the Health at Every Size® paradigm.
This will inspire you. You can live in a body you love and eating can be fun and effortless... much more fun and effective than dieting! Welcome to Health at Every Size.
A letter that asks friends and family to support and love you as you are not as they wish you were.
In this foreward to Ingrid Kollak's Yoga XXL: A Journey to Health for Bigger People, Dr. Linda Bacon shows that size is no barrier to enjoying great health and satisfying physical activity.
Use this journal to monitor how hunger and satisfaction manifest in your body. (Description for use can be found in the book.)
Fast facts on Health at Every Size, formatted as a handy bookmark. Print on sturdy paper to always have some inspiration around. Makes a great gift.
The Live Well Pledge formatted as a handy bookmark. Print on sturdy paper to always keep some inspiration in your books.
The book Body Respect is changing the weight discourse and has galvanized the body positive movement. Learn how and why in this engaging introduction.

Uncategorized

Let's face the facts: we don’t know of healthy methods that result in sustained weight loss. Consider the evidence.
Attuned eating is more effective than dieting. Read why.
Conflicts of interest mar research. Look behind the scenes of obesity research and see how industry influences researchers.

Imagine a world where all bodies are valued and all people are supported in compassionate self-care.

Join me in fostering a world where all bodies are celebrated
El Manifesto Del Cuerpo

*Health at Every Size and HAES are registered trademarks of The Association for Size Diversity and Health and used with permission.