In addition to The Religion of Thinness, Dr. Michelle Lelwica is also the author of Starving for Salvation: The Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Problems among American Girls and Women (Oxford, 1999), which is an academic analysis of the religious and cultural underpinnings of eating disorders and related problems. Additionally, she has published a number of scholarly articles, delivered papers, and lectured widely on the role of religion and spirituality in women’s relationships with food and their bodies.

She is currently Associate Professor in the Religion Department at Concordia College—Moorhead, MN where she teaches classes that deal with embodiment, mindfulness, religion, gender, and cultural critique. She studied religion at Harvard Divinity School, where she received her Doctorate of Theology (ThD) in the area of Religion, Gender, and Culture in 1996.

Michelle lives with her husband and two children in northern Minnesota. She is motivated by the dream of creating a world in which the bodies and spirits of all people—and all beings—are loved, nurtured, and respected not in spite of but because of their marvelous diversity.