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

by Virgie Tovar MA

Overview

"A terrific resource that shows readers how to start feeling good about their body and rewire their sense of self-worth."
—School Library Journal starred review

It’s time to ditch harmful, outdated beauty standards and build real, lasting body positivity. It's time for a self-love revolution!

Every day we see movies, magazines, and social media that make us feel like we need to change how we look. This takes a toll on how we think about ourselves—and how we allow others to treat us. And while many teens feel shame about their body, being a teen girl of color can be hard in unique ways. Maybe you feel alienated by the mainstream image of beauty, which is still thin, white and able-bodied. In addition to that, you may also feel pressure from within your community to measure up to a different—but equally unfair—beauty standard. So, how can you start feeling good about yourself when you’re surrounded by these unrealistic—and problematic—ideas about your body?

In The Self-Love Revolution, leading body image expert and creator of #LoseHateNotWeight Virgie Tovar offers an unapologetic guide to help you question popular culture and cultivate radical body positivity. With this groundbreaking book, you’ll identify and challenge mainstream beliefs about beauty; understand the unique tools girls of color have to counter negative body image; and build real, lasting body empowerment. You’ll also learn how to call out diet culture, and discover ways to move beyond your own inner critic and start building the unconditional love for yourself that you deserve.

It’s time to explode society’s beauty standards, stop messing with diets, wear what you want, and recognize that your body is your business. This book will help you find your way to radical body positivity, one step at a time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684034116
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	05/01/2020
Series:	Instant Help Solutions Series
Pages:	184
Sales rank:	286,382
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Virgie Tovar, MA, is one of the nation’s leading experts and lecturers on fat discrimination and body image. She holds a master’s degree in sexuality studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race, and gender. She is the founder of Babecamp, a four-week online course designed to help people who are ready to break up with diet culture, and creator of the hashtag campaign #LoseHateNotWeight. Tovar edited the anthology, Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion; and is author of You Have the Right to Remain Fat, which was placed on the American Library Association’s Amelia Bloomer List. She is a contributor for ForbesWomen and Bedsider, and was named one of the top fifty most influential feminists by Bitch Magazine. She is a recipient of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale University. Tovar has been featured in The New York Times and Tech Insider, and on MTV, Al Jazeera, and Yahoo Health. She lives in San Francisco, CA.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Our Messy World

1 Nine Points That Explode Beauty Standards 11

2 Question the Culture 23

3 Fatphobia and How It Hurts Your Body Image 33

4 Racism Affects How You Think of Your Body 45

5 We've Been Obsessing About Food for More Than 200 Years 53

6 Nine Gross Characteristics of Diet Culture 61

Part 2 Thoughts on Common Body Confusions

7 Why Is My Family Always Talking About My Body? 69

8 Why Isn't Confidence Enough? 79

9 What Do I Say to Trolls? 87

10 I'm Tired of Hating Myself…So How Do I Love Myself? 95

Part 3 Be You, Not what Someone Else Thinks You Should Be

11 Your Body Does Amazing Stuff Every Single Day, Girl 109

12 Say No at Least Once a Day 115

13 Never, Ever Skip Lunch (or Breakfast or Dinner) 121

14 Take Every Hour You Spend Criticizing Your Body and Do Something Else That's Totally Amazing 129

15 Find Your Allies 135

16 Wear What You Want! 143

Conclusion 151

Acknowledgments 153

Endnotes 155

Interviews

Tovar resides in San Francisco, CA.
 

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/20/2020

In this important guide to self-acceptance written specifically for girls of color, Tovar skillfully blends calls to action, relatable personal anecdotes, and clear explanations of the forces that guide individuals’ understanding of themselves. Via short chapters divided into three sections, Tovar contextualizes how societal conditioning (including diet culture, fatphobia, and institutionalized racism) shapes perceptions of beauty and self-worth, homes in on “common body confusions” (including ideas for handling friends, family, and trolls), and offers suggestions for subverting negative and unhealthy messaging (“Your Body Does Amazing Stuff Every Single Day, Girl”). Using an engaging, conversational tone, Tovar references scientific studies and describes her journey to overcoming fatphobia and self-loathing, ending each chapter with a thoughtful journal prompt that invites readers to connect the information presented with their own experience (“Why do you think diet culture exists? Who benefits from it?”). Tovar’s goal of guiding readers to recognize “the sacred gift in every person,” regardless of shape, ability, gender identity, socioeconomic status, sexuality, or belief system, feels possible with her steady guidance on embracing and appreciating one’s body. Ages 13–up. (May)■

Publishers Weekly

Every body exists the exact way it’s meant to exist. While this shouldn’t be a radical concept, it absolutely is. This is the book I wish I’d read when I was 14. Reading it now feels like a healing for my teenage self. The wisdom in this book is absolutely necessary for the critical paradigm shift needed to liberate young women from the toxicity of our current cultural norms. Tovar is a wealth of vibrant stories and radical insight. Armed with her tiny cactus and gigantic umbrella, she joyously jiggles a pathway to freedom and self-acceptance, illuminating the first steps for each of us to make our own individual journeys.”
—Reagan Jackson, program director for Young Women Empowered, award-winning journalist, and producer and cohost of the Deep End Podcast

Reagan Jackson

How I wish I’d had this book in my arsenal as a fat Colombian girl growing up in the very white, mostly thin suburbs of New Jersey. I cannot wait to share it with my own daughters as they grow older. It will be an antidote to the toxic messaging on beauty standards, dieting, race, and wellness they will no doubt come into contact with. I cannot wait to share it with everyone, TBH—with those who have never heard of radical body positivity or fat acceptance before, with seasoned activists, with everyone.”
—Marie Southard Ospina, MA, writer, editor, and fat acceptance advocate

Marie Southard Ospina

Virgie Tovar is the badass bestie we all prayed for in middle school. Her new book is a revolutionary manifesto, one that’s essential reading not just for surviving the most toxic parts of modern culture, but also for embracing our own needs and power. Unflinchingly real—with page after page of quote-worthy truth bombs— this book is a delicious call to arms for the next generation of girl rebels.”
—Laurie Santos, professor of psychology at Yale University, and host of The Happiness Lab podcast

Laurie Santos

There is so much I can say about this fantastic, necessary, radical, beautiful, powerful book, but the main thing I want to say (well, actually, I kind of want to SHOUT it) is THANK YOU, VIRGIE! THANK YOU! Thank you for envisioning and writing a book like this, that I can give to my daughter, and every young woman I encounter. Would it be weird if I stood on the street and just handed out copies?!”
—Kate Schatz, New York Times bestselling author of the Rad Women series, including Rad American Women A-Z and Rad Women Worldwide

Kate Schatz

This book does have the power to start a revolution! Virgie tells the truth—all the truths—girls of color need to know about their bodies and their own worth, from history, to systemic oppression, to her own instructive story. Virgie brings girls a profound message that is totally accessible, never patronizing. She is a brilliant writer and thinker in body positivity, and she transmits to teen girls of color what grown women learn from her every day. There are other body positivity books out there, but this is the one the girls of color I work with truly need.”
—Jennifer Berger, body image educator; and executive director of the nonprofit organization, About-Face

Jennifer Berger

In this conversational guidebook, the author encourages girls of color to accept and love their bodies. She points out the connections between fat phobia and racism and offers ways to promote body positivity and reject outdated beauty standards.”
—Chicago Public Library, “Best Teen Nonfiction of 2020

Chicago Public Library

Every body exists the exact way it’s meant to exist. While this shouldn’t be a radical concept, it absolutely is. This is the book I wish I’d read when I was 14. Reading it now feels like a healing for my teenage self. The wisdom in this book is absolutely necessary for the critical paradigm shift needed to liberate young women from the toxicity of our current cultural norms. Tovar is a wealth of vibrant stories and radical insight. Armed with her tiny cactus and gigantic umbrella, she joyously jiggles a pathway to freedom and self-acceptance, illuminating the first steps for each of us to make our own individual journeys.”
—Reagan Jackson, program director for Young Women Empowered, award-winning journalist, and producer and cohost of the Deep End Podcast

Rosie Molinary

★ 05/01/2020

Gr 8 Up—This guide for young women (and all women) discusses how to cut through the dominant narrative of mainstream beauty standards. Readers learn to question and reject narrow definitions of beauty. Tovar, a prominent activist, helps readers overcome the societal and cultural barrage of negative messaging and rewrite the narrative around their own body image. As the author unapologetically points out, one's body is one's own business—no one gets to tell someone else what they are. The book does a wonderful job of showing how young girls and women can embrace their individuality and cultivate body positivity. The journey to self-love and acceptance is not a short one, but Tovar demonstrates ways to disrupt mainstream standards, call out sham diet culture, and learn how to be comfortable and proud of one's body. VERDICT A terrific resource that shows readers how to start feeling good about their body and rewire their sense of self-worth.—Elaine Baran Black, Georgia Public Library Service, Atlanta

School Library Journal

2020-03-25
An inclusive, compassionate guidebook that champions girls and women of all ages and challenges the status quo.

Tovar pens a guide for learning to accept and love oneself, inside and out, despite cultural messages to the contrary. While providing historical and cultural context for hurdles to self-acceptance faced by girls and women of color such as sexism, racism, and fatphobia, Tovar encourages readers to show up as their best selves within their communities and to make suitable and necessary changes to themselves, their communities, and society at large. Tovar, a proud, fat babe and fat activist of Mexican and Iranian descent, uses anecdotes from her own life and merges them with findings from scientific and sociological studies to amplify her points. With journal prompts following each chapter, Tovar includes the often missed element of some self-help or motivational books—actionable suggestions for how to make the shifts in lifestyle or mindset that readers may desire or need. This element supports readers in becoming more empowered and mentally, emotionally, and physically healthier versions of themselves. Her style is educational and accessible without being condescending; her warm, friendly tone treats readers as her equals and as whole people while acknowledging that we are works in progress. A fantastic introduction to/reminder of self-love and self-advocacy.

Informative, affirming, and necessary. (endnotes) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews