The Body Is Not an Apology
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it bias . 
A 2016 study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that doctors were less empathetic and spent less time counseling dying black patients than their white counterparts. 
These biases are the result of our tendency to classify people and make split-second judgments about whether or not someone belongs to our social classification. 
Therefore we need to address our implicit biases before we can truly accept others and their bodies. 
You need to change the way you talk about yourself and practice meditation. 
You’ve probably heard or taken part in conversations where a person criticizes their looks only to have a friend counter with something like “No you’re beautiful! But me on the other hand – I’m ugly.” 
This is known as a mutual body shaming friendship and it’s something that needs to stop. 
We can start by changing the way we talk about ourselves. Society teaches us never to boast about our qualities especially our beauty. But there’s a difference between

The Body Is Not an Apology
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 the time you spend watching Netflix tweeting YouTubing and so on. Cutting out your favorite TV shows might be hard but you need to look at them through your radical self-love glasses. Do the programs portray stereotypical messages about gender disabilities race and body size? Once you pinpoint these flaws it’ll be easier to avoid these shows. 
Radical self-love also means recognizing that your body is you. 
We tend to associate our identity with our minds whereas we only see the body as an accessory. 
Eve Ensler was no different. In her 2011 TED talk Ensler described her feeling of estrangement from her body  how she lived as if unattached to it. In an effort to reconnect with her body she wrote the play The Vagina Monologues and became more sexually active. Despite this she still felt detached from her body viewing it as a means to an end during sexual exploration. 
It wasn’t until 2010 when Ensler was diagnosed with cancer that she saw her body as something more. Her body contained

The Body Is Not an Apology
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cancer. She had cancer. She was her body. 
You need to reconcile with your body – by giving it the necessary care and attention – to be able to practice radical self-love. 
Radical self-love requires active involvement with your body. 
Once you start filtering out the media and start seeing your body as a part of you the body-shame voice will soften as the radical self-love voice grows louder. But that’s just the start. 
To achieve radical self-love you need to actively familiarize yourself with your body. 
Increasing the love for your body requires practice. One way to practice self-love is by learning and getting to know your body intimately. 
Over the years we’ve learned to associate the human body with nasty features such as defecation and sweat. Once you let go of that conditioning you can see that the human body is nothing short of a miracle. Just take a look at your hand. Pay attention to its delicate structures that enable you to do simple things such as holding a bottle to

The Body Is Not an Apology
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s are formed by political social and economic landscapes making the ideal body a reflection of that society’s power structures. 
A fat body was once considered desirable and beautiful in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because it symbolized wealth and abundance. 
Similarly society’s understanding of gender has also changed throughout the centuries. In 1503 Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt attended her coronation ceremony dressed as a man with a beard to show she intended to rule like her male predecessors. 
The way we view race has also changed. Not long ago Portuguese and Italians weren’t accepted as part of the privileged white race. 
Unfortunately the flexibility of beauty and gender doesn’t fit well with the media and capitalism which re-emphasize body shaming. 
There’s a massive monetary incentive to making people feel ashamed of their bodies – it helps sell products and boost the advertising industry. In 2015 the website EMarketer reported that $513 billion was spent on advertis

The Body Is Not an Apology
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ing in the US. 
In fact the profit margins are enormous. According to media company Business Wire in July 2015 global sales of beauty products accounted for profits of $460 billion in 2014. By 2020 the figure is expected to hit $675 billion! 
Radical self-love involves reducing media consumption and acknowledging that you are your body. 
To combat body shame we need to develop radical self-love. But how exactly do we go about this? Changing the way we perceive ourselves might sound like a daunting task but there are a few tips to help you reach your goal. 
To get to radical self-love you need to reduce your media intake. 
Media has become a much larger part of our lives than we care to admit or even realize. A 2017 study by the technology company TiVo found that the typical American adult spends  12 hours per day engaged in some form of media. 
We need to lower the amount of time we spend on media because it tries to dictate how we should feel about our bodies. 
That means limiting

The Body Is Not an Apology
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b Burgard a specialist in eating disorders. It presents the crazy idea that a dog’s health is determined by how closely they resemble a poodle. By that measure a St. Bernard would be classified as extremely unhealthy. The satirical film highlights the way we see happiness health and beauty as one-size-fits-all. 
The word “health” is often used as a means to justify our critique of other people’s bodies. A body shamer for example may claim they’re just worried about their friend’s health. But health isn’t something the friend owes the body shamer. People who live with illnesses or those who are disabled are within the spectrum of human diversity and don’t need to change themselves for the benefit of others. 
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize accept and celebrate those differences.” 
Body shame is typically learned as a child after a noticeable change in physicality. 
Have you ever felt ashamed about your body? Try and remember back to t

The Body Is Not an Apology
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he moment when these feelings first came about. 
For many people body shame originated during childhood or early puberty. 
Given that our adolescent years are typically our most vulnerable it’s not surprising that we learn to feel ashamed about our bodies body at an early age. A 2016 study by Yahoo Health on 2 000 teens and adults found that body shame commonly starts around the age of 13 or 14. More startling the study found that younger generations typically encounter body shame even earlier at the age of nine or ten. 
Girls who experience body shaming often get called ugly fat or are made to feel humiliated for their breasts boys get teased for being small or skinny while gender-nonconforming kids are told that their self-expression is wrong. 
Body shaming commonly occurs after a fast and noticeable change in a person’s physical appearance. 
As a child the author remembers an incident when she was playing with her fellow neighborhood kids including a girl named Nia who was a couple

The Body Is Not an Apology
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of years older and just entering puberty. The parents who were watching the children called Nia over to ask her about her chest. “Did a bee sting you?” they sniggered. 
This interaction confused the young Taylor. Why were the adults asking Nia about her bee sting? Eventually Taylor understood that the parents were making fun of her friend. As a result Nia stayed home for most of the summer as she’d learned that her breasts were something to be ashamed of. 
Unfortunately the body shaming you learn during childhood is reinforced later on in life as we’ll find out in the coming blinks. 
Beauty and gender are flexible notions but capitalism and the media have reinforced body shaming. 
Wouldn’t it be lovely to wake up to a world where all the pictures of beauty in advertisements and magazines resemble yourself? Well that’s not an entirely unrealistic fantasy. 
You could be the face of beauty much the same as anyone else because beauty and gender ideals are flexible. Moreover body notion

The Body Is Not an Apology
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has a big role to play. However the kind of self-love that the author is talking about – radical self-love – isn’t the same as self-esteem. 
We can look at radical self-love as a tropical island where self-esteem thrives. Rather than stopping at the shore of the radical self-love island the self-esteem ship is pushed across the oceans by the winds of willpower and ego. 
Continuing this analogy such ideals of self-esteem can cause the ship to crash. Consider all the arrogant and selfish people around the world characterized as confident and highly pleased with themselves. Though they may have high self-esteem levels they don’t necessarily epitomize love. 
Take the current president of the United States Donald J. Trump. From his behavior he doesn’t appear to lack any self-confidence or self-esteem. But his ego overconfidence and lack of loving ideals could lead the country into troubled waters. 
And radical self-love is more than self-acceptance. 
Think back to the times you merely accep

The Body Is Not an Apology
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ted something. Were those moments particularly enjoyable or inspiring? Most likely not. 
Taylor recalls a time when her mother used to pop frozen pot pies into the oven for dinner. Though she accepted the bland meal she didn’t find it particularly thrilling or inspiring. 
When it comes to treating ourselves with love and respect we can do a lot better than self-acceptance. Over the coming blinks you’ll find out how to better the attitudes you have toward yourself and others. This will be your first step toward radical self-love. 
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” 
Radical love is about accepting and celebrating your own body as well as different bodies. 
To work your way toward radical love you need to start by loving your own body. 
One thing you can be sure of is that you have a body. Souls and spiritual energies are matters of speculation at least for the time being. Your body however is here with you right now

The Body Is Not an Apology
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so it makes sense to direct your self-love there. 
Loving your body starts with acknowledging that the harmful thoughts you may have about it aren’t your own. Did you worry about your chubby thighs when you were a toddler? 
Such judgments are external ideals. They either came as comments directed to us or from comments made about others. These judgments aren’t based in truth but in constructs that have infiltrated our minds. 
Moreover loving your body is a practice that not only benefits yourself but benefits others around you too. By loving and celebrating your body you can set an example for your children and friends to appreciate their bodies too. 
Though radical self-love is more than just acceptance it is nonetheless important to work on accepting not just yourself but the other people around you. You can start by appreciating all body types. Everyone has their own unique body type and this should be celebrated! 
The movie The Danger of Poodle Science was created in 2015 by Dr. De

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The Body Is Not an Apology (2018) teaches you how to overcome the harmful relationships many of us have with our bodies through radical self-love. It unravels the mental processes that encourage us to hate our bodies so that we can learn to love them instead. 
This is a Blinkist staff pick 
“As a fat person and a feminist I can only recommend this title to everyone. It is an eye-opening plea to question and fight body shaming—so that together we can work towards reconstructing a society that celebrates our different shapes instead of shaming them.” 
– Robyn Curator at Blinkist

The Body Is Not an Apology
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What’s in it for me? Learn how to help reduce body shaming. 
The media has exacerbated our obsession with our looks. No matter what form of media we’re consuming the social commentary on our bodies is relentless. Questions such as “Am I too big or too small?” “Too hairy or hairless?” and “Too tanned or not tanned enough?” confront us on a daily basis. 
But this isn’t a healthy way to think. Rather than ignoring your body and its flaws these blinks will teach you how to accept it and appreciate its uniqueness. Taylor offers a refreshing perspective on how to view your body so that together we can work towards reconstructing a society that celebrates our different shapes instead of shaming them. 
In these blinks you’ll learn 
about implicit biases; 
about the mutual body shaming friendship ; and 
at what age body shaming starts. 
Radical self-love isn’t self-esteem nor is it self-acceptance. 
When we talk about loving ourselves and our bodies you might think that self-esteem

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
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 our unwanted feelings. As evolutionary biology points out there is likely a good reason for even the most unpleasant feelings. 
Got feedback? 
We’d sure love to hear what you think about our content! Just drop an email to [email protected] with the title of this book as the subject line and share your thoughts! 
What to read next: Behave by Robert Sapolsky 
Obviously it’s difficult to sum up the complexities of human nature in just one set of blinks. So if you’re eager to dig a little further into the contradictory and confounding science of human behavior then let us recommend Behave by the acclaimed author and professor Robert Sapolsky.  
As a matter of fact Sapolsky is a big fan of Nesse’s work in Good Reasons for Bad Feelings calling it an “exploration of an issue that goes to the heart of human existence." So now’s the perfect opportunity to continue your exploration of this fascinating topic by venturing over to our blinks to Behave . 
 >

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
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ugs is at odds with how we developed. 
If you’ve ever tried to exercise more stop smoking or cut down on junk food then you know how hard it can be to do things that are unquestionably good for you. For many of us it’s such a struggle to get fit that we turn to self-help products. In 2013 alone the US market for weight-loss products was worth over $60 billion. 
The reason we have trouble shedding unwanted pounds and keeping them off is actually rather straightforward: the mechanism we developed for regulating body weight is ill-suited to the modern world.  
This mechanism goes back to when our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to sustain themselves on whatever they could find. Nowadays we can stroll down supermarket aisles stocked with foods from around the world. To make matters worse many of these foods have been prepared and packaged in a way that makes them hard to resist. 
Unfortunately the weight-regulation mechanism we’ve inherited is unable to cope with us having delicious food av