Regardless of where you or your loved one are in their recovery journey, eating disorder recovery can be extremely challenging and, at times, isolating. In addition to your support network of friends, family, and professionals, finding additional resources can provide a source of strength and support. Podcasts, books, informative videos, and more are all amazing resources to help inform and inspire yourself.
Whether you’re in search of self-help books for eating disorders, books about intuitive eating, or workbooks to challenge the way you think, there is no shortage of eating disorder recovery books to explore.
Here are some of the best books for eating disorder recovery. Wherever you or your loved one are in your recovery journey, there is something for everyone!
Health and Nutrition Books for Eating Disorder Recovery
Nutritional rehabilitation and restoration of health are a core part of eating disorder recovery. These books for overcoming disordered eating dive into topics like intuitive eating, size inclusivity, diet culture, and more.
Anti-Diet Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating
This book dives deep into the world of diet culture and how to break free from it. By explaining the lies diet culture tells us, author Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, explores how to leave behind the harmful — and untrue — things we are told to believe, helping people instead step into happiness and food freedom.
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach
In this book, authors and eating disorder nutrition experts Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CERD-S, FAND, and Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CERD-S discuss the 10 Intuitive Eating principles, the core ideas to step out from a diet culture mindset and embrace a holistic nutrition approach that helps you feel good — inside and out.
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight
We are often told the lie that the ideal or “healthy” body is one rooted in thinness — however, that’s not true. Written by Linda Bacon, PhD this book shares the ideas behind the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement, which embraces the idea that every body, regardless of shape or size, can be healthy and deserves care.
Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat: A Mindful Eating Program to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle
Penned by Michelle May, MD, this book teaches how to embrace mindful eating, breaking away from cycles of restriction, binging, and self-punishment, instead listening to your body and what it wants (and needs).
In this book, author Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, examines an often overlooked, disguised side of diet culture: the “wellness” industry. From influencers to supplements, this investigates the misinformation, harmful standards, and general messages we are told and how we can step into a more helpful mindset.
Best Books on Eating Disorder Recovery
Whether you want facts, support, or someone to relate to, these books provide a realistic look at what it means to recover from an eating disorder and how it can transform your life for the better.
Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too
Through a series of essays, Jenni Schaffer examines her relationship with her eating disorder. Separating her eating disorder, whom she calls “Ed,” as a different personality from herself, Jenni inspires others to declare independence from the abusive relationship between the eating disorder and to live a life of freedom.
Looking at recovery through a unique storytelling lens, with ancient legends, folktales, and multicultural myths, Clinical Psychologist Anita Johnson, PhD, shares a mix of exercises and insights to live a life in recovery.
Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders
One of the things many people with an eating disorder have in common is that they feel they are not “sick enough” to require care. However, as Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS, FAED shows through extensive research, there are severe health impacts of eating disorders that are often overlooked in people of all body sizes. This book highlights the importance of recovery for all individuals, regardless of whether they feel they are “sick enough” or not.
Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover: Eating disorder recovery for the determined adult
Recovery is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Recovery coach Tabitha Farrar shares a mix of personal stories and insights from those she has helped, creating a “toolkit” that focuses on nutritional rehabilitation and neural rewiring to gain confidence in yourself and step into power in your journey.
Feed Yourself: Step Away from the Lies of Diet Culture and into Your Divine Design
In this book, Leslie Schilling, MA, RDN, CEDS-S helps uncover diet culture — even when it’s hiding in the places we may least expect — and teaches what health actually looks like, encouraging us to break free from guilt and shame while learning to trust ourselves.
Books for Families of Eating Disorder Patients
These books are powerful resources for families, sharing what they need to know to walk alongside a loved one in their eating disorder journey and find support for themselves along the way.
Surviving an Eating Disorder: Strategies for Family and Friends
It can be a complex, emotional experience supporting a child or other loved one through their eating disorder. A team of experts — Michele Siege, PhD, Judith Brisman, PhD, CEDS, and Margot Weinshel, LCSW, share a blend of helpful knowledge and strategies as you support your loved one’s walk through recovery.
Rather than leaning solely on professionals, Casey Crosbie, RD, CSSD, and Wendy Sterling, MS, RD, CSSD, share how parents can be one of their children’s best resources for eating disorder recovery. Using the “plate” method instead of an exchange system, Crosbie and Sterling share how a simple visual method for nutritional rehabilitation can be transformative in a child’s recovery.
Anorexia and other Eating Disorders: how to help your child eat well and be well
Full of research and powerful insights, Eva Musby shares a wealth of tools and resources rooted in family-based treatment to empower parents as they support their children through recovery.
Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia
Eating disorders can be incredibly isolating — both for those who experience them and the support network who are helping their loved one through that journey. Journalist and professor Harriet Brown shares her family’s experience as they supported her daughter through her eating disorder, offering a powerful reminder that you are not alone and that recovery is possible.
Written by Lauren Mulheim, PsyD, this book is full of family-based treatment tips to help parents help their teens through eating disorder recovery. Learn how to be compassionate, yet firm, to guide them as they gain independence in their own intuitive eating habits and live a life of food freedom once again.
Books About Body Image
Overcoming body image struggles can be one of the biggest challenges in eating disorder recovery. These books teach how to take a different perspective and use various techniques to embrace a more helpful mindset that embraces your body for what it is — instead of what the eating disorder may want it to be.
More Than A Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament
Society and diet culture may make us feel like our self-worth is tied to our appearance. However, twin sisters Dr. Lexie Kite and Lindsay Kite challenge that mindset with the powerful idea that our bodies are meant to do so much for us — and rather than looking at them for how they look, we can embrace them for all they allow us to do.
Body Kindness: Transform Your Health from the Inside Out–and Never Say Diet Again
What if four principles could help transform your relationship with your body — for the better? By focusing on how what you do, how you feel, who you are, and where you belong, Rebecca Scritchfield, RDN shares how to release what we can’t control and embrace what we can to enter a state of body kindness.
You’re not alone if you feel resent, anger, and a whole mix of other complicated emotions toward your body. Penned by Dr. Linda Bacon and Dr. Lucy Aphramor, Body Respect shines light on weightloss myths and teaches us how to honor our bodies.
The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living
Especially in a recovery journey, many people feel disconnected from their physical selves. In The Wisdom of Your Body, Hillary L. McBride, PhD, shares powerful insights to build a mind-body connection and embrace all the different parts of yourself.
Body Image Inside Out: A Revolutionary Approach to Body Image Healing
For many people, their body may be something they view as an enemy. Written by Deb Schacter, MSW and Whitney Otto, MA, PCC, this book encourages people to use a combination of powerful approaches to transform that mindset, and heal the relationship they have with their physical selves.
Eating Disorder Recovery Workbooks
Eating disorder workbooks contain exercises, prompts, and helpful tips to challenge yourself and the way you think. They can be a great tool to offer additional support through recovery.
Living in a world of social media where diet culture is everywhere can be overwhelming, to say the least. Juliz V. Taylor, PhD offers helpful exercises to challenge topics including perfectionism, negative self-talk, and more, to stop comparison and embrace everything that makes you uniquely who you are.
The Body Image Workbook: An Eight-Step Program for Learning to Like Your Looks
What would life look like if you celebrated your body? While it may feel difficult — and at times, impossible — this workbook by Thomas Cash, PhD, offers a program that teach you how to appreciate your body as you deserve to!
A Workbook of Acceptance-Based Approaches for Weight Concerns
This three-part, research-based workbook by Margit Berman, PhD, LP guides you through the challenges of eating disorder recovery, helping improve your relationship with food and your physical self.
Discover the Best Books for Eating Disorder Recovery and Additional Resources
Whether you are just beginning your eating disorder recovery journey or you are looking for additional support as you continue in your journey, these books can be powerful tools, providing helpful insights, inspiration, and motivation. The best books for eating disorder recovery are just one piece of a holistic recovery journey. If you’re looking for additional support through recovery, Life Cycle Nutrition is here to walk alongside you.
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