Not good to the point of being especially damaging. Everything valuable in it is redundant to Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch, and all of that is discussed better by them than by Bacon. Health at every size is a (unfortunately radical) concept that Bacon fails to actually commit to. Her language is heavily program-oriented and, instead of acting as a stealth operative setting out to dismantle culturally-ingrained toxicity, she just ends up reinforcing it through her style, structure, and emphasis on control. Where Tribole and Resch thoroughly eviscerate the idea that everyone can have the same “body type” by force of will, Bacon, within the first 50 pages, ends up creating the impression that the only reason this isn’t desirable is because of how hard it is. She’s right that the psychological ramifications of diet culture are devastating; she’s wrong to suggest that treating psychological symptoms will solve the problem. Her constant moral descriptions of foods as good and bad reinforces all of this and only made me appreciate even more how Tribole and Resch take value-based decision-making into account while still educating readers about their bodies, nutrition, the benefits and limits of exercise, and the medical model generally. They are very clear about how moralizing eating is endlessly harmful, and meanwhile Bacon is posing as a liberator while just kind of fucking around. I did not get the sense that Bacon was capable of handling the logical implications of what she was proposing, and I wasn’t getting anything out of it. Read Tribole and Resch. Health at Every Size updates the language of toxic messages about eating and weight to be more palatable for the 21st century without attempting any fundamental changes. It’s reformist, not revolutionary, and all it does is make the baggage harder to drop.