It’s Always Been Ours was a book that I actually was drawn to because I’ve been on a health and wellness journey for years. I ended up reading the book during the 75 Soft Challenge and I found it to be helpful and insightful. While there was good information on the health industry and the things a black nutritionist and registered dietitian faces, I found quite a few passages to be very taxing and hard to read at times. Overall, I thought it was okay, at times.

If you’re looking for a book that explores race, body image, and diet culture this is definitely the book for you.

The author didn’t hold back. I enjoyed reading about her experiences as sometimes the only black registered dietician in professional settings. Her desire to just “be” is a desire for many black girls. (Relateable)

She didn’t shy away from topics like food apartheid, “health”, capitalism, and racism.

Her writing style was easy to follow. I would like to say that if you’re on a journey or suffer from an eating disorder some of the stories and topics may be triggering. It is a short read but she explored some deep topics about race as well. You should take your time as you read as some of the topics can be triggering. Over all I enjoyed reading it!

IT'S ALWAYS BEEN OURS by Jessica Wilson MS, RD is absolutely brilliant. She positions her book--especially her approach, use of certain words, and more--alongside books like Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings and Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun L. Harrison, which creates a robust conversation that is bigger than just her. Jessica centers Black women, which is very needed, while also highlighting the failures created (and perpetrated) by notions like Health and Wellness, which so relentlessly hold up thin white cis women as the ideal.

I bought a copy of this book, too, because I want to be more aware of and make better decisions for students in what they read. Jessica Wilson's book further helps me identify approaches in literature that could uphold a thin white cis body ideal--and will help me make different reading choices *before* the texts ever reach my students.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #Hachette for making an advance copy available.

This is such a smart, necessary book. Jessica Wilson has written an incisive, practical, and wise analysis of diet industries, wellness, and health discourse in our time, reminding us whose interests are served and whose are not (spoiler: Black women’s are not). She flips all of the diet and health discourse and puts Black women and femmes at the center of her analysis and recommendations.

The book is also a delight to read, written in an engaging, almost-conversational style. Wilson’s analysis integrates personal stories, interviews, and case studies of her clients, in her distinctive voice.

I really hope It’s Always Been Ours is widely read by those who most need to read it — especially professionals who work with clients who are dealing with eating disorders.

It's Always Been Ours; Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies by Jessica Wilson MS, RD was an absolutely stunning read. I felt incredibly honored to have been able to read this before publication and will certainly be buying several copies for loved ones and one for myself as well. It's the sort of book you definitely want to hold.