about us
Dr. Lindsay Kite and Dr. Lexie Kite are identical twins and co-authors of the book More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament (2020, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and co-directors of the nonprofit Beauty Redefined. They both received PhDs from the University of Utah in the study of female body image and have become leading experts in body image resilience and media literacy. Authors of numerous studies and books have cited Lindsay and Lexie’s original research and they have been featured in a variety of national media outlets, including The New York Times, CNBC, the Boston Globe, Slate, Shape, Glamour, Teen Vogue, and more.
Lindsay and Lexie help girls and women recognize and reject the harmful effects of objectification in their lives through their significant social media reach, online Body Image Resilience course and facilitator program for dieticians and therapists, their popular book (More Than a Body), and regular speaking engagements for thousands of people of all ages.
Their work that centers on the truth that positive body image isn’t believing your body looks good, it’s knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks. This refined definition of positive body image provides the foundation for their work to arm people with the tools to build resilience in a culture that objectifies and commodifies bodies. Whereas approaches like body positivity and body neutrality can feel impractical or unachievable in a culture that values women in particular as bodies first and people second, the Kites’ approach centers on helping people build Body Image Resilience – a practical and continuous process of facing body shame triggers and responding in strategic ways that reconnect you to your body and your greater sense of self.
Lindsay and Lexie earned their Ph.D.s from the University of Utah Department of Communication in 2013 after earning their master’s degrees from the same department in 2009. Their complementary dissertations were focused on positive body image through the research areas of resilience, media literacy, health literacy, women’s representation in media, health education, and feminist theory and methods. They earned their bachelor’s degrees (Lindsay in Journalism and Women’s and Gender Studies, and Lexie in Journalism and Speech Communication) from Utah State University in 2006.
Lindsay lives in New York City and Lexie lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
See below for Lindsay’s TEDx talk, which introduces the mission of More Than a Body in a personal and research-backed way.