For five decades, negative body image has been a major focus of study due to its association with psychological and social morbidity, including eating disorders. However, more recently the body image construct has broadened to include positive ways of living in the body, enabling greater understanding of embodied well-being, as well as protective factors and interventions to guide the prevention and treatment of eating disorders.

Handbook of Positive Body Image and Embodiment is the first comprehensive, research-based resource to address the breadth of innovative theoretical concepts and related practices concerning positive ways of living in the body, including positive body image and embodiment. Presenting 37 chapters by world-renowned experts in body image and eating behaviors, this state-of-the-art collection delineates constructs of positive body image and embodiment, as well as social environments (such as families, peers, schools, media, and the Internet) and therapeutic processes that can enhance them. Constructs examined include positive embodiment, body appreciation, body functionality, body image flexibility, broad conceptualization of beauty, intuitive eating, and attuned sexuality. Also discussed are protective factors, such as environments that promote body acceptance, personal safety, diversity, and activism, and a resistant stance towards objectification, media images, and restrictive feminine ideals. The handbook also explores how therapeutic interventions (including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Dissonance, and many more) and public health and policy initiatives can inform scholarly, clinical, and prevention-based work in the field of eating disorders.

Tracy L. Tylka's profile page

Niva Piran is a professor in the Faculty of Education of the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist, and a school consultant in the area of body image.

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"This Handbook is an important and refreshing contribution that ushers in a necessary and desirable shift from the body as problem to the body as possibility. Framed rightfully as a matter of social justice, the handbook's focus on the critical roles of mindfulness, embodied practices and literacy as interventions and forms of therapy offers clinicians and practitioners, as well as researchers and teachers, roadmaps for finding and following the too-often obscured signs to encourage and enable us to demand the freedom, happiness and health that we each deserve."

--Deborah L. Tolman, Professor, Women and Gender Studies at Hunter College and Critical Social Psychology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York

"This book brings together an exciting array of world-class researchers, scholars, and practitioners to address fundamental questions that people new to the fields of body image and eating disorders will have and that experts should still be asking. This book is groundbreaking because it provides multiple and clear paths to the breadth, depth, and integration needed to advance positive body image and embodiment as forms of personal, interpersonal, and public health."

--Michael P. Levine, PhD, FAED, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Kenyon College

"The view we have of our body impacts on so many aspects of our lives. How refreshing to read a book that focuses on positive aspects of the body: the broad social environment as well as interventions to enhance our view of our body. The authors of the chapters read like a Who's Who of contemporary body image researchers."

--Marita McCabe, PhD, FAPS, Research Professor and Team Leader, Health and Aging Research Group, Swinburne University

"The Handbook clearly confirms the significance of this cutting edge topic. Editors Tylka and Piran, renowned for their brilliant leadership in the field, have assembled this unique compilation of innovative perspectives, state-of-the-science knowledge, and creative applications. The handbook is essential reading for researchers and practitioners who are fascinated by the human meaningfulness of body image and embodiment."

--Thomas F. Cash, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Old Dominion University, and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Body Image: An International Journal of Research