Lindo Bacon

Lindo Bacon (formerly Linda Bacon) is an American researcher, author, and advocate who developed the Health at Every Size (HAES) framework, a paradigm shift in the approach to health and body weight that has influenced clinicians, researchers, and public health practitioners worldwide. Bacon holds a Ph.D. in physiology and has held research and faculty positions at the University of California, Davis, and City College of San Francisco.

Their 2008 book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight synthesized decades of nutritional science and obesity research to argue that the evidence linking higher body weight to poor health outcomes is far weaker than commonly portrayed, that intentional weight loss efforts typically fail in the long run, and that a focus on health-promoting behaviors — regardless of their effect on weight — produces better outcomes than weight-focused interventions. The book was a landmark in challenging the stigma-laden assumptions embedded in conventional approaches to weight and health.

Bacon’s co-authored follow-up, Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand About Weight (2014), written with Lucy Aphramor, deepened the HAES framework and addressed the social determinants of health, including the profound health costs of weight stigma itself. Bacon has more recently shifted their focus to what they call a “Whole Person Liberation” framework that integrates health, social justice, and intersectional thinking.

They continue to lecture, consult, and write for both professional and general audiences, and the HAES framework they developed has become a foundational reference point in the fields of eating disorder treatment, public health, and size acceptance advocacy.