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📚Body Trust Book Club: Week 2

  • Writer: Monica Freudenreich
    Monica Freudenreich
  • 6 days ago
  • 4 min read

As a reminder — and I’ll keep saying this every week because it matters:

✨ You are never behind ✨


Read as much or as little as you can. If you’re just joining now, skipped last week, or only skimmed — you’re exactly where you need to be. I’m really glad you’re here.


If you want a bit of extra structure or community, I’m also experimenting with StoryGraph’s book club / readalong feature. You can find me there if that’s helpful:👉 https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/monicafreudenreich


📖 Reading Focus — This Week


Week 2 (Jan 19–25):Part 1 — Chapters 1 & 2


(Next up) Jan 26–Feb 1: Chapter 3 (Part 1) + Chapter 4 (Part 2)



Week 2 Thoughts (Chapters 1 & 2)


Okay — who else is becoming slightly obsessed with this book? 🙋‍♀️I really love their writing style and how they talk about Body Trust — grounded, compassionate, and clear without being preachy. More of this, please.


Before Part 1 even begins, this line 🫶:

“What we know — and want you to know — is that what has happened has not been your fault. There is no repentance necessary. Your coping has been rooted in wisdom, and we aren’t here to take away anything you need to survive.” (p.37)

YES. Full-body yes.

Chapter 1: Body Trust Is a Birthright


This chapter feels like a cheerleader and a truth-teller all at once. I really appreciated how clearly they name the impact of anti-fat bias starting in childhood, and how Body Trust is shaped (and disrupted) through identity, intersectionality, and systems, not personal failure.


Their definition of diet culture is one I want to bookmark forever:

“Diet culture is a combination of language, patterns of thought, beliefs, and practices reinforced by the media, medicine, academia, and pop culture. It is the atmosphere in which we live and breathe… filtering itself through clever marketing, fear-mongering about size, and fatphobia disguised as care. It’s quite a successful racket.” (p.42)

Also — this needs to be said loudly and clearly:

“There is no evidence-based treatment for high body weight that leads to sustained weight loss five to ten years after the initial weight loss — and this includes weight loss surgeries.” (p.47)

I’ll add (confidently): this will almost certainly come to include weight-loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, too.


And the reminder I think many of us need when this work feels lonely:

“This work is countercultural and you will be misunderstood.” (p.48)

Yep. And still — we keep going. You’ve got this. We’ve got this.


Chapter 2: Your Body Story

Or.... my suggested alternate chapter title: Control Is an Illusion

“Control is often a compelling path in our struggles with our bodies… control seemingly offers clarity, a path forward and a plan. And no matter how you slice it, control is an illusion.” (p.53)

YES. Honestly, this sounds like me on most work days. 🙃


I also loved the way they talk about retreats and group work — it made me miss facilitating groups. Group spaces can be incredibly powerful for healing relationships with food and body when they’re evidence-based, well-facilitated, and not just diet culture in new packaging.


And once again, the truth lands:

“Control is a lie.” (p.54)

They also include a really important few pages on Body Trust and trans experiences. It’s worth naming again here that trans folks are over 8x more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder than cis white women — and that’s almost certainly an underestimate.


One More Thing I Really Want to Name (Harm Reduction 💛)

Before we move on, I want to pause on the harm reduction coaching questions posed by Sand Chang on p.66, because these feel so aligned with how I think about this work — especially when change feels scary, slow, or not-linear (which is… most of the time).


These questions gently shift us away from all-or-nothing thinking and toward supporting ourselves where we actually are. Not fixing. Not forcing. Just reducing harm.


Some of the questions they offer include:

  • What would make this feel a little safer right now?

  • What support do I need — internally or externally — to get through this moment?

  • If stopping completely isn’t possible, what would reducing harm look like instead?

  • What is the kindest, most protective choice I can make today?


I love this framing because it respects that coping strategies exist for a reason. We don’t rip them away. We get curious about how to support ourselves with a little more care, a little less cost.


Harm reduction says:

You don’t have to be “ready.”

You don’t have to do this perfectly.

You don’t have to choose between control and chaos.

You get to choose support.


Access to care is still deeply impacted by the same systems that reinforce diet culture in the first place (medicine, academia, the way we diagnose ED's (DSM). Ugh. The systems we live in. Still — this is a passage by Sand Chang I wish everyone would read (pages 62-68 for those with the paperback version).


Looking Ahead

This coming week (Jan 26–Feb 1), we’ll be reading Chapters 3 & 4 --


No rush.

No catching up required.

Read what you can, when you can.


We’ve got this. Let’s keep going.


Thanks for being here with me. 💛


 
 
 

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