PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Amanda Magnus
This episode of Embodied discusses disordered eating. If this content isn't for you, check out the other episodes in our podcast feed.
Anita Rao
As a college student and a participant in office culture, for the past 15 years, I've been to many brown bag lunches where typically new information from someone smart washes over me while I pick spinach out of my teeth, but never has a brown bag lunch changed my life.
Alishia McCullough
I was holding on to every word that she was saying. I had my journal, and I was writing down all the things she was sharing, and then I sat with her words, and I said, Wow, this is my experience
Anita Rao
A decade ago, in her early 20s, Alishia McCullough was sitting in a room with her fellow grad school classmates. She was studying mental health counseling, and this particular brown bag lunch about eating disorders was a light bulb moment the behaviors described by the professor, restricting food, losing weight and rapidly gaining it again, were all things Alicia had experienced in her own life, but as a black woman, she had never associated herself with the phrase eating disorder.
Alishia McCullough
I even, being a grad student, had so much stigma associated with words like disorder diagnoses, because those were just experiences that were not talked about in my community, in my family, and so there was a dissonance for me around I'm learning about these things, but I didn't know I could be impacted by The same diagnosis that I'm learning about in school.
Anita Rao
Alishia is one of some 21 million Americans that have had or currently are experiencing an eating disorder. But as a person of color, she's also part of a population that is less than half as likely to receive a diagnosis than her white counterparts after her eye opening experience in grad school, Alishia set out to understand why are so many people of color going under diagnosed for eating disorders, and what tools and practices will bring them healing where existing methods have failed. This is embodied. Our show about sex, relationships and health. I'm Anita Rao Alishia documents her search for answers in the new book, reclaiming the black body, nourishing the home within that journey took her into her own family history to understand the first messages she learned about food at the dinner table in little Washington, North Carolina.
Alishia McCullough
I had two parents, two parent household, and both of my parents worked multiple jobs to ensure that our family had all of our needs met. That I know that they were working really hard to nourish three kids alongside two adults. And so what I remembered clearly was that my parents would go grocery shopping, we'd have, like, a full pantry, a full refrigerator, and then they'd say, we have to make this last and so I learned from a young age about, you know, this pattern of really sparcing out food and being mindful, and not just because it was taking care of your body and being mindful what you're putting in your body, but more so around finances, around if we run out of food, then we're not going to have enough, you know. And so I learned this pattern of, you know, not enoughness connected to food and needing to be very mindful about how much I was consuming, when I was consuming, how I was consuming, I had a household that really taught clean your plate, and if you don't, there's a lot of shaming around that, around, well, kids in this country, you know, for example, yeah, don't have access to food. Those were the messages that I learned a lot around not enoughness, a lot around scarcity and a lot around shame.
Anita Rao
So you mentioned these kind of messages that you're absorbing, like, we don't have enough, you must clean your plate. Groceries aren't cheap, but you were also raised Christian. Your family went to church twice a week. So what were the messages that your faith was teaching you about food and your physical body that kind of layered on top of the messages you were getting in your house?
Alishia McCullough
A lot of these messages did not directly come from like the church that itself. A lot of these came from the religion. A lot of what I learned was the story of Adam and Eve. Eve, you know, is this early creation story about Eve, where she eats an apple. And essentially, creation is doomed because of this decision to eat this apple that, you know is associated with sin and lustfulness and, you know, ungodliness. And so I learned that the food that we consume has an impact on the relationship we have to God. And then also being indoctrinated with this idea that especially as a girl and as a woman. That I needed to control my body, that I did not need to be too large, that that was considered not attractive to society, and that my priority should be orienting my body to be pleasing to men and to the male gaze. So I learned a lot about what it meant to take up less space and to alter my body in order to be deemed as attractive. And attractive meant thin and attractiveness to be thin also meant restricting your food intake so that you can modify your body.
Anita Rao
I know that your mom and your grandma were both big dieters. Were there explicit messages that you were kind of inferring from their relationship with their bodies and food that shaped your own behavior also.
Alishia McCullough
Absolutely. They were also impacted by these values around being thin, getting back to your pre pregnancy body. That was something I heard a lot growing up of, like, you got to step back, you know, you have to lose the weight. And so a lot of times, even in my household being indoctrinated with a lot of magazines, Slim Fast magazines, Weight Watchers magazines, seeing my mom and grandmother being Weight Watchers programs. Oprah was very prevalent in our household. It became normalized for me to think about thinness as being this moniker for what beauty, success and desirability look like.
Anita Rao
How did that show up in terms of like, your behaviors around food and exercise in your adolescence? What did that look like on a day to day basis?
Alishia McCullough
As an adolescent, I started to really feed into 17 Magazine and a lot of other magazines. Yes, a lot of those magazines catered to teens around beauty and what it means to be in relationships and how our body should look. And I remember specifically when I would get the magazine, I would flip to the exercise section. And when I got to that section, I would always say, Okay, I have to get the summer abs, or I have to get the summer bottom, or, you know, whatever it was, the summer legs, the summer arms. And so I would wake up in the mornings right before school, and I would eat a can of fruit, and then I would work out very intensively, and then I would say, that's all I'm gonna have for today. I worked out, that's all I'm gonna have for today, and I may have not ate for the rest of the day until maybe dinner time. And I didn't know that what I was doing was unhealthy. I didn't think about it as being super restrictive. Even in my church environment, it was very normal for us to go on fast. And the way I learned about it in church was that it cuts out distractions, so you limit your food, to cut out distractions, so you can be closer to God. And so that was also norm for me. And so this idea of restricting food never came across to me as disorder. It just came across as well. This is just a part of like what we do.
Anita Rao
Looking back, what do you think the people in your life who were telling you that you were healthy or even like your own mind was telling you like? What were you not seeing when you saw this behavior as like, this is totally normal. This is this is just how you can have a relationship with food.
Alishia McCullough
So something I was not seeing was, for example, when I was a teenager, my hair started really thinning out. And I just thought it was because I was getting a lot of perms, which are chemicals that, you know, you use in your hair to get your hair pretty straight. So I thought it was just a result of over perming my hair, because I would go to my hairdresser every six to eight weeks for a perm. And then there were also things, for example, of, you know, my nails being pretty weak. My body was very, very thin, and so I was consistently tired. And I also, at that time, got early diagnosis of subclinical hyperthyroidism. And so I just thought all of those were just just a part of, like, you know, my health conditions, or, you know, these other behaviors, but I never thought that the root of it was my undernourishment that that was what was contributing to these symptoms that I was experiencing that were making my body pretty weak at that time.
Anita Rao
How did like doctors respond to those symptoms?
Alishia McCullough
Yeah, so when I would go to my healthcare providers, a lot of times I was praised for being thin. So a lot of my providers would say you're a perfect size. Don't get any bigger. Or even when I did get the diagnosis of subclinical hyperthyroidism, my doctors just said, keep coming back every six months, and we'll do some lab work. And if you're normal, you're good. If it continues to be a thing. We'll just keep monitoring it so it never was like a solution to address the conditions that I was experiencing. A lot of the times I was praised for my behaviors, and so for me, it just never registered to be a problem.
Anita Rao
So I want to fast forward in time a little bit. We have you in your Adele. Sense, kind of having this relationship with your physical body, but normalizing it, saying like this is just kind of how it is. You kind of went through school really quickly. You were doing accelerated schooling programs, and you started grad school when you were just 21 but at that point, you hadn't started unpacking your own disordered eating. So what was it that motivated you to start studying eating disorders, given that you didn't have that terminology at that moment in your life.
Alishia McCullough
So something that always has stuck out to me is this deep commitment to social justice. And so I talked a little bit earlier about the experience of being at the brown bag lunch and learning about the binge restrict cycle. But during that same conversation, there was also conversations about body positivity, and so body positivity felt like an outlet, almost like a solution to what I was experiencing that was already addressing issues of trauma and the ways that anxiety shows up different in marginalized communities and depression and other conditions, but when I got this eating disorder lens, it's just like something clicked within me, and I said, That's it. The root of a lot of the things that we're experiencing do come from this inability for us to experience liberation and show up in our bodies. And that's what I want to study. I want to get to the root of why is it difficult for us to be in our bodies? And I knew that food was just one avenue where it was manifesting, and so I wanted to gain a more holistic idea of how we were experiencing this condition.
Anita Rao
Coming up next, what Alishia discovered about how eating disorders show up differently in black communities, and what new tools she's found for helping herself and other black folks with disordered eating. You're listening to embodied from North Carolina public radio, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear embodied as a podcast, follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
Anita Rao
This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. We're talking today with therapist Alishia McCullough, who for about two decades thought her anxiety and restrictive behaviors around food were normal. In her new book reclaiming the black body, Alicia described how it wasn't until she was in grad school studying mental health counseling that she connected the dots between her experience and the term eating disorder that started her down a path of investigating why she and so many other black women go undiagnosed and untreated for so long,
Alishia McCullough
I clearly was dealing with restrictive eating and honestly, an eating disorder more consistent with anorexia nervosa, when I went into my providers, none of them, you know, noticed that it was a problem. I mentioned I was praised for my behaviors, even when I was experiencing those severe symptoms, of thinning of my hair, of my nails being thin, of shortness of breath, you know, all of those things really consistent with anorexia, nrosa. And so when I started to work with clients as well in eating disorders, I noticed specifically for my black clients, they had a lot of the same stories of experiencing these extreme eating disorder patterns, whether it was anorexia, whether it was binge eating, whether it was bulimia or whether it was another form of an eating disorder, they were all sharing that they had these symptoms, but none of their providers were picking up on the fact that they were experiencing an eating disorder, or, what I like to Say in my book, and eating, in balance, a lot of their providers dismissed them, and they also felt like there was not a safe place to even discuss this or even have the language for what they were experiencing. And so, similar to me, they had this story of just kind of being in this rabbit race, but not knowing what's going on, like going and going and going, and you've normalized this experience, but don't know that you're actually in pain, you're actually suffering, that you're actually being victimized by, you know, this experience and condition that doesn't have a name for your specific body.
Anita Rao
Are you saying that their behaviors were those of anorexia nervosa or binge eating, but because their bodies weren't severely underweight or didn't have kind of the stereotypical presentation of an eating disorder. That was what led to a lack of diagnosis,
Alishia McCullough
Absolutely, and that was another part of it as well, too. I had a lot of clients, for example, who were in larger bodies, who would only eat one time a day, and that is significantly consistent with undernourishment. But their providers never thought it was a problem, and, in fact, encouraged them to say, you know, well, can you eat even less? You know, because you are in a larger body. And so they experience these stories of because they were in larger bodies, or bodies that were more curvaceous, or bodies that may have just held a little bit more fat in certain areas. Is they were experiencing their provider saying, you know, you need to do more of restricting. You need to do more of harm in your body. Oh, you're, you know, vomiting at night, you know, okay, maybe we prescribe you, you know, this other type of weight loss medication, or you're binging. You definitely need to control that. You know, these were things that they were coming into my office and saying that their providers were telling them so it was the lack of representation, the encouragement of the behaviors, and then also this experience of the body not being represented in the stereotypical way that we see eating disorders, and so them not getting the support that they needed. And then at that time.
Anita Rao
When you became a clinician, you were leading a support group for black women with eating disorders, you started to really observe the ways that they were presenting differently than maybe how you had been taught, and the training and tools you had for therapy didn't quite equip you well to serve the way that their disordered eating was manifesting. What are some things that you started to try doing differently as a therapist to better serve your clients of color that had disordered eating behaviors.
Alishia McCullough
Yeah. So one of the bigger things was having the conversations a lot of the clients I was seeing share that no one even asked them about, what is your relationship with your body? How are you feeling in your body? Today, I was so open that I would say, you haven't nourished yourself today. Do you need to leave and go get a snack, and we can bring it into the office and we can eat together, you know? And so I was very open to what do you need in this exact moment, and then ensuring that we could meet that need together. And then also, when we had the conversations about weight or body, I was very mindful about not shaming them. I was having the conversation of thank you for telling me about your experience of being in your body. Today, I wonder about when you think about your relationship to your weight, how do you feel about that? And so putting the power back in their hands and into their mouths around how they wanted to talk about this conversation, and not enforcing or projecting my beliefs around the way that they should think or feel about their bodies.
Anita Rao
When we talk about eating disorders, we use the term eating disorder or disordered eating. We're talking about a wide spectrum that that contains a lot of different presentations, a lot of different kinds of severities. I'm curious about the spectrum that you work on as a mental health therapist. Are you doing this kind of work with both folks who are kind of in a more inpatient setting where they need real behavioral help eating again, or is this coming later on the recovery journey? What is that spectrum?
Alishia McCullough
Yeah, eating disorders are very vast, and we have different ways that we approach them. So one of the areas I was working in is outpatient. So outpatient treatment is what we consider less severe. Typically, these are folks who may be getting the diagnosis of an eating disorder for the first time, or these are people who are returning from a higher level of care, and so that could be more of an inpatient or hospitalization setting, and then they, you know, go through that program, and after that program, they make contact with me, and typically a nutritionist that is in an outpatient setting. But I've had many colleagues, and I've also supported clients with getting into inpatient facilities. And so I had a lot of clients, for example, and I want to name specifically my black clients who, when they would come to me, they were in a pretty severe conditions, and then I would support them with getting to the hospital.
Anita Rao
Got it okay. So there are so many kind of parts of this healing journey where you work with clients, and also you have had your own healing journey. And I want to come back to that for a moment, and kind of how your growth as a therapist was happening at the same time as you were healing your own relationship with food, you became really interested, especially in ancestral history and the role that ancestors play in how we relate to our bodies and food today. So you did some genetic testing and research, and you traced your family's roots all the way back to Sierra Leone and Gabon, then through the transatlantic slave trade to the Carolinas. So I'm curious about what this process of discovery revealed to you about your ancestors relationship with food.
Alishia McCullough
Yeah, wow. It was such an emotional experience. Yeah, you know what I found when I specifically started looking at the food Roots was, you know, that my family did settle in the Carolinas, and they've been there for generations and centuries now. And a lot of what we were doing was really cultivating and in a good relationship with the land. And so this was post enslavement, and so a lot of what we would do is have a really reciprocal relationship with land, where we knew about moving in alignment with the seasons and how to farm and how to hunt, and also beyond that, when we get into like before the transatlantic slave trade, there was also this history, especially in Sierra Leone, of it being known as the rice coast. So a lot of folks. Who were enslaved were bought over from Sierra Leone because they were known to be able to cultivate and harvest rice. And so rice is something that I even have a deep relationship now, as I think about the nourishment that it provides, as I think about the proteins, and, you know, the type of grain and the way it's cultivated. And so that's something that's really stood out to me that I've carried with me until now. And so my sister actually recently bought this book, and it's specifically for Sierra Leone, and it has all of these recipes and different drinks and things like that that you can make. And she gifted it to my grandmother for her birthday. And I told her, I'm like, I want a copy as well, too.
Anita Rao
I love that.
Alishia McCullough
So, you know, I'm looking forward to that coming for me.
Anita Rao
I mean, when you say all of this, one of the things that I hear that's interesting is like marking these moments of really strong connection that your ancestors did have with the land, with particular foods, like rice. But you are looking at this history when you're in a moment of trying to understand your own disconnection to food. So I'm curious about how you think about that, like, how did understanding your ancestors deeper connection to food help you think about your own personal disconnection?
Alishia McCullough
Yeah, it gave me a sense of pride, because I think for so long, specifically, when I think about the systemic messages around black food. There's so much negativity associated with black food being unhealthy or black food being bad, and so these were messages that I grew up hearing a lot about my particular cultural foods. And so I learned, especially when I got to college, to start to disconnect and distance myself from those foods. But when I was starting this process of reclaiming my own relationship to food and exploring, you know, where the disconnect happened, I started to notice, even as I was looking into my ancestors, this deeper pride of saying to myself, wow, like these are people who have went through the unimaginable and were able to carry these plants to carry these roots with them through those experiences to this new land. And so it gave me a deeper sense of connection to food, even while I was still healing through these other bigger systemic conditions around feeling that my body was not good enough, even as I was still healing through that, I was also pulling from this other level that was allowing for me to feel those areas of emptiness, was something that was more powerful, was something that was more encouraging, was something that just gave me a deeper sense of self.
Anita Rao
I'm curious to talk about the genetics. Piece of this you mentioned that you did ancestry testing, which kind of gave you some of the raw information to understand where your family had been and where it planted roots. But there was also, I mean, a lot of emerging research about epigenetics and how kind of trauma can be transmitted genetically from generation to generation. So as you kind of put those things together, were there any links that you uncovered about how generational trauma might affect how disordered eating shows up in black communities,
Alishia McCullough
Absolutely so epigenetics was something that I've always been interested in, in even before I got to grad school, and when I was a psychology undergrad major, one of the things that stood out to me was to study about mice. So there was a researcher who studied mice and their exposure to this scent called Cherry Blossom. And so what they found was that they created this negative association with the smell cherry blossom. And what they found was that that negative association that the grandparents had around cherry blossom showed up as well in their grandchildren. And that was, you know, without the grandchildren having any exposure to negativity, it was solely once the grandchildren smelled that cherry blossom, they had that negative association. And they've done many studies outside of that to show that the experiences, for example, that our mothers have in the womb impact three generations forward, because we're also holding the eggs of our grandchildren, if that is what's happening. And we've done that study to prove that. What does that look like for folks who were enslaved? What does that look like for the nervous systems of those of us who never had the opportunity to receive therapy? What does that look like for those of us who are just now getting to this century to 2025 after having all of those years of intergenerational and epigenetic trauma, one of the things I was studying was that during those times that a lot of us were significantly undernourished. So throughout the transatlantic, you know, folks were significantly undernourished. They were giving the bare minimum to eat. And then that continued throughout the plantation system. And then when, you know, we had systems like redlining that separated neighborhoods and created food deserts that continue to happen too. And so it made me think, when we talk about health issues in black communities, you know, we talk a lot about disparities, but were these disparities truly coming from? Is it coming from that we have. Been significantly undernourished and also given poor access to food for generations and generations and generations that then does contribute to health issues, because we do know stress in the body leads to inflammation, and inflammation is a precursor to other chronic conditions, whether that is heart disease or diabetes or high blood pressure or hypertension, these conditions that we often see in higher rates and black communities. And we often just look at the bodies of black folks and say, Oh, it's just because you're unhealthy. It's just because you're in a larger body. You just need a diet and exercise more. But when we look at the studies, what we see is that our communities have faced a lot of these markers for inflammation and trauma and stress that have been internalized for generations without receiving the adequate support that we need.
Anita Rao
So as you're talking I'm kind of imagining you like I have these, like three images of you. I have the you who is, you know, doing this deep dive research, trying to understand your ancestors. I have the you that is in clinic with folks and hearing stories from black women that reflect some of your own experiences. And then I have the you that is trying to change your own personal relationship with food. Given both of these other things, like, is there a moment or a story where you feel like things started to gel together for you, where you were actually seeing and able to make shifts in your own relationship to food as you integrated all of this.
Alishia McCullough
Yeah, after grad school, I actually worked in college counseling for three to four more years, and then I decided to leave and move to Washington, DC, and I was living by myself, and that was the first time that I chose to date myself. I was single at the time, and a big part of that looked like creating more healthier routines for myself, and so getting more adequate sleep, waking up in the morning with meditation, being intentional about my yoga practice and making sure that I was fully nourishing my body. And so in that experience, I took a lot of time to slow down. I took a lot of time to really tune in and get to the root of what are the issues that I'm facing. And like, let me gain more self awareness around how do I start to really shift? You know the person that I am today to be the person that I want to be. And so it required for me to really slow down, to take my time, to notice those signals when my body said I'm hungry, and not just like, bypass those signals, but to really listen and say I'm hungry in this moment. What do I need to get up and do right now? Do I have yogurt in the refrigerator? Am I like craving a yogurt? I need to go get my yogurt? Do I need to cook? And at that time, I was using this food subscription, hello, fresh, which really saved my life, because I wasn't like the best cook, but it gave me this introductory experience into really starting to like cook meals, and, you know, have more adequate nourishment. And so I had a consistent practice of ordering from them every single week. And so it just created this opportunity for me to be in this deeper relationship to self, and I started to integrate all of these pieces from the research side, so this very academic, educational side to the work I was doing with my clients, and then also my own personal journey. I was able to start to, like, weave those things together. As I slowed down and started my own healing journey and got really serious about that.
Anita Rao
I think one of the things that's so tricky about food and disordered eating is that food is everywhere. Eating is such a big part of how we engage with each other. Culturally, it's something we need to do every single day to survive. So while you're doing all of this deep work and creating these new rhythms for yourself, you're still in a lot of spaces where people are relating to food really differently. You tell some interesting stories in the book about this experience of sitting at a table with your girlfriends and kind of being aware of how you all are reading each other's bodies and what's such a relatable scene? Because I think there is this, like, food is not just a solo thing, it's something that is shared in communal so how, like, what was it like to kind of build this awareness in yourself, but then also be out in the world? Like, how did it shape your your friendships and your ability to be with other people?
Alishia McCullough
It really allowed for me to align with people who had shared values. And so around that time, I had already started to speak pretty vocally on social media about body positivity, about food justice, about anti oppression. And so what I was finding is that I was already aligning with people who shared those similar values. And so I was kind of replacing, you know, some of the relationships that were a little bit more toxic for me, or even relationships that I had set boundaries around that were immovable to those boundaries. And so what I found is that when I would go out to these experiences, I was the example. And I think people were shocked and surprised. To see how easy it looked for me, but I want to name and say it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy to be the person who is counter cultural, if you want to say and I noticed for a lot of folks, I think they had this idea of me as being pretty radical. And so a lot of folks even started to distance themselves from me, because they had this idea of me being this very radical anti diet type of person.
Anita Rao
Well, what was that like for you to kind of be on the receiving end of some of that distance?
Alishia McCullough
Honestly, it was painful. Folks who did distance themselves from me, they didn't see also that it was beyond me taking on these new ideas. What I was doing, was having this bigger mission for what does liberation and healing look like for all bodies. And so for me, it also felt like this kind of rejection around the work that I was doing, you know, around the choices that I was making. And so I've been working with myself around the grief and the pain around, you know, don't take it so personally. That's something I try to tell myself, is, don't take it so personally. Recognize that everybody's in their experience and journey. They're entitled to that, and they may come to this space and they may not, but you have to continue the journey that you're on. And I will say, over the years, I've had a couple folks who have returned back to me and said, Wow, like I read your book and it's inspired me, or I've seen some shifts in the social media content of some of my friends who were once very much into diet culture. And I'm like, I don't even need the credit, but I will just say I'm noticing the things.
Anita Rao
We're going to take a quick break, then we'll jump into Alishia's practices for tuning out the noise of weight loss messaging, and we'll hear about how moving to Mexico has led her to reflect on what the US can do better in eating disorder treatment. We'll be right back.
Anita Rao
This is Embodied. I'm Anita Rao Alishia McCullough started the journey to healing from disordered eating almost a decade ago. But it's not over.
Alishia McCullough
I want folks to know that when I talk about this work, I never talk about it as a space of arrival.
Anita Rao
Alishia's personal work and professional career as a licensed mental health therapist led her to interrogate how systemic racism and generational trauma affect black women's bodies, digging deep into her own ancestral history and learning to re attune to her body's cues has helped her develop a new relationship with food, but she is still living like we all are in a culture with strict messaging around what a healthy body looks like. So I wanted to know how Alishia finds healing in this wider context.
Alishia McCullough
I don't think that you know a part of us living this life is that we arrive at these perfect places. I think that we're always in progress. And even when we think we arrive, what I've noticed over time is that the next level or layer just opens up and you're like, Okay, I have more work to do. And so for me, what I've experienced is that level of I have more work to do. And so even though I'm not consistently counting calories. I'm not, you know, monitoring my weight. What I have noticed is that as I've gotten older, that my body has shifted and changed. I have a lot of hormonal changes that you know are consistently happening. And you know, my body responds to those things, and so then it's like, Okay, what does my body need in this moment? You know, in order for me to feel nourished, or in order for me to feel like I'm taking care of myself adequately. And so one of the things I think about is, especially dealing with a lot of hormonal changes, is that sometimes I'll be super hungry, and I'm like, oh my goodness, I just ate. Like, why am I hungry again? What's going on? And then I realize, Oh goodness, like my body is needing more food, but I might have that, you know, past perspective, or that outdated script of, okay, you just ate. You just need to wait until dinner. And I really have to work through that and say I shouldn't have to restrict myself if my body's saying I'm hungry now it's okay for me to identify what exactly is my body hungry for firstly? And so it could be, okay, I want an apple or some grapes. It could be, I'm ready to get some pizza. Or it could be, you know, I'm really craving community, and I really need to get on a call with one of my good friends and have a conversation. Or, you know, I really could use like, a hug for my partner, you know, and so really getting clear around, what is it that my body needs in this exact moment, and then seeing if I can meet that need. And sometimes it's, you know, not available. Sometimes, like my partner's not home, or I'm not able to access it for it, and then it's saying, well, what's the deeper experience that I'm having? Loneliness? Okay, let's talk about the. Loneliness, right? Like, let's pull out the journal and write about what you're experiencing in this loneliness. What does loneliness feel like in your body? Where is it at and what does that experience need in order for it to be felt and released? And so sometimes, for me, that could be getting up and doing a movement activity, whether that's yoga or even in somatic therapy, we talk a lot about shaking out the body as a way of releasing emotions. And so sometimes it's shaking out the body, and then I finish that, and I'm like, Oh my God, that's exactly what I needed. And sometimes, like, I do that, and I'm still like, I'm still hungry, yeah, and I need to get some food.
Anita Rao
Well, I mean, it's interesting to hear you talk about this, like, building this intuition and being able to kind of listen to your body and learn your cues. And there is a whole movement we've talked about on the show about intuitive eating, and how to kind of learn your body's signals. But that, I mean, the discussion of intuitive eating is also happening at the same time that there is a rise in weight loss drugs like ozempic, which basically override a lot of your body's cues and kind of change the signals of how you're you're feeling in terms of hunger and fullness. And there is a lot of new societal pressure around thinness because of ozempic. So I'm like, How are you making sense of this idea of like, what does it mean to listen to your body, when now there are all these drugs that eliminate hunger cues and like, how does that fit into this whole conversation?
Alishia McCullough
Yeah, and I know those are super prevalent worldwide, but specifically in the United States, there's a lot of conversations on weight loss drugs. And I mean, even when I get on social media, a lot of you know folks that were originally a part of these like body positive or body liberation movements, have now, like significantly lost weight as a result of being on these medications. And so in a lot of ways, it's very discouraging to experience that and to see that. And at the same time, something I've been very mindful about, and I feel very lucky, is that I don't live in the States anymore, so I don't feel like the heavy impact of like those messages. And at the same time, because I'm still seeing it on social media, I'm very mindful of, as I'm seeing this post, or as I'm seeing this person, what is happening in my body. And so I have a practice now, whereas I'm scrolling social media, if I see something that's activating for me, I will pause and check in and say, Okay, I saw this celebrity, for example, who once was, you know, a very strong advocate for our bodies being, you know, a space of love and acceptance. And they were in a larger body, and now, you know, they've shifted that because they are on, you know, this medication of ozempic or something else. What's happening for me? And I'll notice, I'll say, I feel a sense of betrayal, and I sit with that, and I'm like, Well, why do you feel the betrayal? Like you don't know this person. Like, why do you feel that? And it's like, what is that reminding you of? And I sit with it, and I'm like, it reminds me, you know, of a time where, you know, I had a sense of solidarity with someone, and they made me feel as if I was alone, or they made me feel as if they were not here for me when we were in the same fight together. And so, you know, I get to the root of it, but I also just want to name outside of my own internal work. You know, we are in a system where ozempic and these other weight loss drugs have just been so glorified in society. And so it can feel so easy for folks that are listening to say, Well, the next time I'm at my doctor's office, I'm going to request to be on a med, you know. And I want folks to know, like, you know what your body needs, and you know what feels good for your body. And I know there's so much pressure to have to change yourself, but you are perfect, just the way you are, and you also have choice, and so you get to make the decisions that help you feel good in your body. And I think that's important to share, because even as I've been on this journey, I've moved away from this idea that if people don't believe the same way, I believe that they're a problem, and more into this work is about creating choice and liberation. And so my goal is just to provide as much information as possible, and whatever folks decide to do with that information is totally their choice. Like that's what I want folks to have, is just access to make the decisions that are best for them.
Anita Rao
You mentioned that you no longer live in the United States in 2024 you left the US to move to Mexico. I'm curious about how moving to a new country has shaped your thinking around how eating disorders are talked about and treated in the United States.
Alishia McCullough
Honestly, moving away have shifted everything for me in regards to my mindset about everything, but specifically when I talk about eating disorders or body image. I am lucky to live in an area that is on the beach. So I live in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, and everybody's walking around in bikinis. It doesn't matter what their body size is, what their shapes are. It's so hot that it would be irrational to wear anything else but that. And so most times when I'm seeing folks. Bikinis or shorter skirts or dresses, and I see people in all body sizes and shapes, just like proudly and confidently moving in their body and embracing themselves. And it's not like a culture of so much shame around, for example, in the States, or even the way I was raised, there was a lot of shame around, like nakedness or the body just being seen, and it's like, authentic expression. But when I go to like spas, or when I go to like, you know, different experiences, like women's spas, like, I think about that being the main thing, I'm always just seeing women walking around just freely, and it's like, okay, like you're just walking around freely and confident, and you're not feeling shame or hot in your body, and so it's encouraged me to also take up some of those values. It just feels like I'm not so like weighed down in the way that I felt in the States. And there's a lot of other factors that contribute to why I feel that way, especially as a black woman living here, it just feels that I can just exist without the way that I look or my presentation being demonized or labeled as negative, I can just move through the world just as myself, without all of these extra layers put onto me. And so that has been a space of freedom. And I'll also just name when I do go to my providers here, I'm never like, shamed for my weight. Like, yes, they take my weight and they write it down. But I'm never told, like, Oh, you're too big, or, you know, you you need to lose weight. Like, it's just like a measurement that they take. But it's not like a part of the conversation necessarily. It's just like, you know, other parts of like, how are you feeling and what are you eating? Like, do you feel good about what you're eating? Let's do your blood work. If your blood work comes back, well, that's, that's great, you know. And so those are the type of conversations that we're having, and not so much about this, like esthetic component.
Anita Rao
That's really interesting that you're naming changes that you're even seeing in the medical system, which is, you know, one part of this whole spectrum of how eating disorders are talked about and treated. And there's obviously so many, you know, ways that can look, but kind of from your vantage point, having had access to both of these healthcare systems, having had some space to reflect on how you've seen eating disorder treatment function in the US, what are some of the shifts that you'd like to see that you think would move toward a more healing model? Going back to this idea of looking at really the causes of eating disorders and healing them, both on an individual and systemic level.
Alishia McCullough
So one of the things I think that we have to just have a widespread conversation about is that eating disorders don't have a look and so I think once we debunk the idea that eating disorders, for example, are solely a white girl illness, particularly those who are in thin bodies, then we can really open up the conversation and see eating disorders or eating imbalances impact all bodies. And so I think we had to first start there. We also have to get into, you know, what are the symptoms? And so I've laid out throughout my book a lot of the ways that eating disorders present differently for black folks, and how it's just really layered when we talk about things like, you know, our hair texture, like earlier in our conversation, I was talking about getting perms. And I was getting perms in my hair, because the hair texture that organically grows out of my hair, very curly hair, was considered unruly and disorderly in society, and so what I felt the pressure to do since the age of five, was to start getting perms to straighten my hair. My mom, you know, got me my first permit five years old. And those are the conversations that I think are important to have as well. Because I thought my hair was falling out because of the perms, but it was because I was under eating. But there's the link there, you know, between this idea of me trying to make myself feel more presentable or more in alignment with westernized or Eurocentric culture by straightening my hair. And so that's a conversation too. Is the ways in which we are consistently, especially for those of us who are black, Indigenous and People of Color, we are consistently doing things in order to distance ourselves from our cultures and communities from a systemic level. And so I think the conversations in our offices also have to be, you know, tell me about what your experience is like being in your body. Tell me about your experience with your hair. Do you feel that, for example, you know, you are treated the same way as your lighter skin counterparts. When we talk about the conversation of colorism, I think there's so many layers that black communities are also experiencing on top of the food, things that contribute to why we restrict our food. Because we think, Oh, well, one of the things I can do is change my body. I can't change my skin tone. I can't change my hair texture, necessarily. I can't, you know, change, you know, my eye color or my nose shape or whatever the case might be. But I can do this. And so I think that's why there's this strong buy in. And I think our providers have to be aware that there are these other systemic factors that are impacting our ability to be in our body and start asking those questions, one, getting awareness of it, and then starting to ask those questions so we can have a holistic scope of what someone is experiencing when they come into our offices.
Anita Rao
We started this conversation really rooted in your family's story and how that informed your relationship with food. We talked about your mom and your grandmother their experiences of diets and dieting. I'm curious about the shifts that you've seen in your own family in terms of views on body and eating as you've gone on your own journey.
Alishia McCullough
You know, it feels so inspiring that a big part of my journey wasn't to really like teach or talk down or convince anyone, it was just me living out my truth, and, you know, really hoping that my truth resonated and allowed shifts to happen in other people and so, you know, even with my own mom, what I love is that we can have conversations now where she will call me and say I had a doctor's appointment today, and my doctor, you know, said this thing to me about my weight, and I was able to speak up for myself. You know, that brings me so much joy when I hear her say that she spoke up for herself, or even when she tells me that she noticed something, you know, maybe in a co worker or a client who says something problematic about, you know, bodies or food, and she's like, Yeah, that's exactly what you talked about in your book. And I'm like, Yes, notice that, you know, so that feels really good for me, and I will say, and I just want to be transparent that everyone's not on board. So, you know, everyone hasn't been on board in my family, and that's okay too. I honor that the work that I've done will reach the folks that are ready to receive it, and you know, the folks that don't like that's okay too, like, at least the needle has moved just a little for there to be an opening to a different thought.
Anita Rao
You end your book with the assertion that healing from eating imbalances is possible, which I feel like is honestly a pretty bold assertion in this moment and in this age and in this you know, billions of dollars of diet culture. So what makes you believe that. And is there an example from your own life that really grounds you in the belief that it is possible?
Alishia McCullough
So as I said, you know, I'm still in the process of, there are times where thoughts come up of, you know, should I eat this or should I get another meal? But I don't think that is an indication of lack of healing. I think that's actually an indication of healing. A big part of what I've learned through the years of studying the work of healing is that healing is not the absence of problems. It's not the absence of questions or doubts. Healing essentially is an opportunity for us to return back to ourselves with more awareness, so that we can show up more wholly within our own bodies. I think we all can get a place where we're more conscious about the relationship we have with our bodies, that we're asking our bodies more questions, and that we're listening more to our bodies more than we're just reacting. And so that's what I feel like is possible for a lot of us in relationship to our food, that we can slow down and we can have the conversations with ourself of, what do I need in this moment? You know, is my body craving something? What? How do I meet that need? And if I'm not able to meet that need in this moment, can I have the conversation with my body much like I would have with a child of I'm not able to do this at this moment, but I will be able to go get this thing and maybe, you know, 30 minutes or a little bit later in the day. Is there something else we can do to meet the need while I'm not able to make meet it in this moment? And so it's creating a relationship of trust with your body, where your body knows that, okay, I'm sending signals. You're listening, you're responding. I can trust you now, and that's the way I want folks to show up. Is in this relationship of trusting and feeling a sense of more wholeness.
Anita Rao
You can find out more about Alishia McCullough, the author of "Reclaiming the Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within" at our website, embodied W unc.org you can find all episodes of embodied the radio show there, and make sure you're subscribed to our weekly podcast. Today's episode was produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Wilson Sayre. Nina Scott is our intern, Jenni Lawson, our technical director, and Amanda Magnus, our regular editor. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District North Carolina. Public Radio is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.