Black folks battle eating disorders, too

My first introduction to eating disorders as a diagnosis were Lifetime movies showcasing thin white teenage girls. The parts that I could relate to were the unbearable fear of being fat and unbridled disgust at every mirror I encountered. In middle school, an old childhood friend and I connected on our mutual obsession with our bodies—sharing weight loss tips that reinforced one another’s disordered eating—congratulating each other when we managed to lose a few pounds.

But that wasn’t considered a real eating disorder. We were not so thin you could see our ribs like in the movies, but we looked in the mirror and wished we could. We were just two Black girls trying to appease a culture that had convinced us we didn’t deserve to feel safe in our bodies.

In later years, my friend got closer to resembling the white girls in lifetime movies before getting treatment. I, on the other hand, maintained my unhealthy relationship to food in plain sight, still occupying a body that was constantly being policed, especially by family. Ironically, when I look back on old photos of myself I was just barely chubby. But I remember vividly looking in the mirror and seeing a version of my body that didn’t exist.

In the 2000s and earlier, the body standard skewed towards very thin. In fact, the bar for being fat and “undesirable” was extremely low. I observed this in many of the tv shows I watched as a teenager. All the characters with any sort of curves became the fat friend. It was especially prevalent with Black women and girls.

Despite the ways Black folks in general were being force-fed media depictions that scrutinized our bodies, somehow we get left behind in conversations about eating disorders.

Thankfully, the tide is slowly, but surely changing. Today there are Black therapists and activists shedding light on the unique issues that Black and Indigenous People of Color face when navigating disordered eating by pushing for more inclusive advocacy and treatment as…