My first book, The Tyranny of Thinness, will be published by North Atlantic Books in October 2026.
Drawing on memoir, feminist theory, and cultural analysis, The Tyranny of Thinness is a wide-ranging treatise on how the skinny ideal shapes our earliest memories and experiences—and steals joy, agency, and self-determination from our adolescences, our social identities, our ambitions, and even our sense of moral worth.
Praise:
“Bold, intimate, and philosophically rich, The Tyranny Of Thinness is an essential guide to how the thinness ideal got its claws on us, and how to get free. Leboeuf conveys the pain of eating disorders, the punitive beauty norms of modeling, and the self-care that facilitated her recovery with lucidity and verve.”
- Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell University and author of Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia and Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny
“If you think philosophy has no relevance to life, read this book. If you think there’s nothing new to say about eating disorders, you'll find, with delight, that you're wrong. If you are a teacher trying to bridge the gap between ‘theory’ and lived experience, put this book on your syllabus. If you struggle with eating and body image issues and are tired of the same prescriptions—both from medical professionals and from the culture—that’s been offered to you so far, I promise you will finish this book feeling refreshed and hopeful. I did!”
- Susan Bordo, Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities at the University of Kentucky, and author of Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
Drawing on memoir, feminist theory, and cultural analysis, The Tyranny of Thinness is a wide-ranging treatise on how the skinny ideal shapes our earliest memories and experiences—and steals joy, agency, and self-determination from our adolescences, our social identities, our ambitions, and even our sense of moral worth.
- Part 1 traces the origins of fatphobia in anti-Black racism and unpacks how thinness as an ideal is constructed. Here, I show how self-objectification is instilled in girls and women.
- Part 2 offers a path forward. Embodied practices like intuitive eating, joyful movement, sensual awareness, community care, and the philosophical exercise of world-remaking offer compassionate, realistic, and self-empowering strategies for resisting the lies and pressures that we’ve been programmed to strive for.
Praise:
“Bold, intimate, and philosophically rich, The Tyranny Of Thinness is an essential guide to how the thinness ideal got its claws on us, and how to get free. Leboeuf conveys the pain of eating disorders, the punitive beauty norms of modeling, and the self-care that facilitated her recovery with lucidity and verve.”
- Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell University and author of Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia and Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny
“If you think philosophy has no relevance to life, read this book. If you think there’s nothing new to say about eating disorders, you'll find, with delight, that you're wrong. If you are a teacher trying to bridge the gap between ‘theory’ and lived experience, put this book on your syllabus. If you struggle with eating and body image issues and are tired of the same prescriptions—both from medical professionals and from the culture—that’s been offered to you so far, I promise you will finish this book feeling refreshed and hopeful. I did!”
- Susan Bordo, Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities at the University of Kentucky, and author of Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
To pre-order the book, please visit: