Books on nutrition & midlife health that will expand your perspective
I am often asked for my suggestions of books to read on nutrition and midlife health. I read most nights before bed, and have an audio book subscription to help me plow through books on nutrition and midlife health. In this post, I list some books on nutrition and health-related topics that I have read and felt offered insight into the diverse topics I see in my practice focusing on nutrition in midlife and beyond.
These books focus on nutrition for healthy aging, mindful eating, books that will (likely) challenge your perspectives and beliefs about weight and health, habit change and midlife health.
Please note that information needs to wisely consumed and digested before it is applied to you. You are the expert of yourself. Be open-minded to new ideas and perspectives, but not so much that your brain falls out.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
I have organized my list of nutrition and health books into the categories below:
- Healthy Aging & Healthy Eating
- Books that will likely challenge your perspectives and beliefs on weight and health
- Body Image
- Mindful eating and holistic approaches to eating and health
- Habit change
- Mindset and Perspective from which to create goals
- Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating
- Perspectives on Addiction
- Gut Health & Irritable Bowel
- Family Nutrition
- Miscellaneous
Image by Lubos Houska from Pixabay
Books on Nutrition and Midlife Health
This list of books on nutrition and midlife health is based on my personal reading. I expect to add to this list over time.
** Please note that these books are not a substitute for medical care, they should not be taken as endorsement, nor should they replace seeking care from a regulated health professional. If you have questions or concerns about your nutrition or health, contact your physician or regulated health professional.
Many of these books are available by audio book, digitally as well as hard copy.
Books focusing on Healthy Aging & Healthy Eating
- The Telomere Effect: A revolutionary approach to living younger, healthier, longer – Elizabeth Blackburn, Ellsa Epel
- Food & Fitness after 50 – Christine Rosenbloom and Bob Murray
- Eat, drink and be healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating. Walter Willet, Patrick J Skerrett
- How Not to Die: Discover the foods scientifically proven to prevent and reverse disease – Michael Greger
- The Healthy Aging Diet Tufts University
- Becoming Vegan: Comprehensive Edition: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-based Diet. Brenda Davis & Vesanto Melina
- The Blue Zones, 2nd Ed: 9 Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. Dan Buettner.
- Younger Next Year: Live strong, fit and sexy – until you’re 80 and beyond – Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge
Books that will likely challenge your beliefs on weight and health
- Health at Every Size – Lindo Bacon (formerly Linda Bacon)
- Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body – Roxanne Gay
- Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works – Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
- Body Kindness®: Transform your Health from the Inside Out – and Never Say Diet Again – Rebecca Scritchfield
- Anti-diet: Reclaim your time, money, well-being and happiness through intuitive eating – Christy Harrison
Books on Body Image
- Body image your body is an instrument not an ornament – Lindsay Kite and Lexie Kite
- Mother’s Daughters and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We are – Hillary McBride
- The Wisdom of your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness and Connection through Embodied Living – Hillary McBride
Books on Mindful eating and holistic approaches to eating and health
- Well Nourished: Mindful practices to Heal your Relationship with Food, feed your whole self and end over-eating. Andrea Libertstein
- The Mindful Eating Workbook – Vincci Tsui
- The Joy of Half a Cookie: Using Mindfulness to Lose Weight and End the Struggle with Food – Jean Kristeller, Alisa Bowman
** It is unfortunate that the title of this book (The Joy of Half a Cookie) includes weight loss. I believe mindfulness can definitely help us end our struggle with food. It is the very pursuit of intentional weight loss that creates our struggle with food. I believe that eating mindfully can help reduce interactions with food that override our body’s signals and can help us get our true needs met.
This book is based on the published research using Mindfulness-based Eating Awareness Training, an approach I have been trained in. However, mindfulness-based approaches should not be used with a covert expectation that weight loss will ensue. Rather, mindfulness-based approach can help people learn the skills to tend to internal signals, cues and needs, and to reduce automaticity of trigger-response relationships.
Books on Habit change:
- Tiny habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything – BJ Fogg
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – James Clear
- High Power Habits: How Extraordinary People become That Way – Brendan Bouchard
- The Power of Habit: Why We do what we do in Life and Business– Charles Duhigg
- Better than Before: What I Learned about Making and Breaking Habits —to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less and Generally Build a Happier Life – Gretchen Rubin
- The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal How to Make your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, too) – Gretchen Rubin
Books on Mindset and Perspective from which to create goals:
- Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent and Lead – Brene Brown
- Gifts of Imperfection, The: Let Go of Who you Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who you Are – Brene Brown
- Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Whole Hearts – Brene Brown
- Gratitude Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time – Nancy Davis-Kho
- Playing Big: Find Your Voice, Your Mission, Your Message – Tara Mohr
- Mindsight: the new science of personal transformation – Daniel J Siegel
- What happy people know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better – Dan Baker
- The Happiness Project: Why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle and Generally Have More Fun – Gretchen Rubin
- Think Like a Monk – Jay Shetty
Books focusing on Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating
** If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder, seek help from your physician and regulated health professional. A book is absolutely no substitute for the care that people struggling with eating disorders need.
- 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder: Effective Strategies from therapeutic practice and personal experience. Carolyn Costin, Gwen Schubert Grabb
- Overcoming Binge Eating 2nd Ed: The Proven Program to Learn Why you Binge and How you Can Stop. Christopher G Fairburn.
Books offering perspectives on addiction:
Books on Gut Health & Irritable Bowel
- The Complete Low FODMAP Diet: A Revolutionary Plan for Managing IBS and Other Digestive Disorders – Sue Shepherd and Peter Gibson.
- The Complete IBS Health and Diet Guide: Includes Nutrition Information, Meal Plans and Over 100 Recipes for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Dr Maitreyi Raman, Angela Sirounis, Jennifer Shrubsole.
- The Complete Acid Reflux Diet Plan: Easy Meal Plans and recipes to Heal GERD and LPR. Nour Zibdeh.
- Gluten-Free: The Definitive Resource Guide. Shelley Case.
- Gluten Freedom: The Nation’s Leading Expert Offers the Essential Guide to a Healthy, Gluten-free Lifestyle. Alessio Fasano.
- Fiber-Fueled – Wil Bulsiewicz
Books on Family Nutrition:
- Food to Grow On: The Ultimate Guide to Childhood Nutrition from Pregnancy to Packed Lunches. Sarah Remmer, Cara Rosenbloom
Miscellaneous books:
Tagged in: books, habits, midlife, midlife health, mindfulness, nutrition
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