Interview with Stephanie Armstrong, author of “Not all Black Girls Know How to Eat”

In conversations on eating disorders, black women are often left out of the debate.  Despite valiant efforts by activists and researchers in the last few decades and evidence to the contrary , eating disorders are still often stereotyped as a young, white girl’s disease. Stephanie Armstrong hopes to change that.
In her new book, Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: A Story of Bulimia , the now 40-something, recovered, married mother of one daughter and two stepdaughters documents her descent into bulimia in her early 20s and describes her struggles as a black woman with a disorder consistently portrayed as a white woman’s disease.  The Los Angelos screenwriter and playwright also examines the “bootylicous” black woman stereotype and why the black community’s “code of silence” often leaves black women with eating disorders suffering in silence.  The work is being hailed as the first book by and among black women about eating disorders.

In an online interview I conducted this week with Stephanie, she shares her thoughts on how her disorder developed and how she recovered from it, the differences between eating disorders among white women and black women, modeling healthy behaviors for her three daughters, body image and more.  I’ve reposted just a snippet of the interview below.

In what ways are eating disorders similar and different in black and white women and girls?

For me the biggest difference was that we don’t talk about eating disorders in the black community so you believe that they don’t exist. The reality is that we don’t talk about most things in the black community. There is a code of silence that is pervasive. There is also the stereotype that all black women like being heavy. That being bootylicious is a bonus as opposed to being thin. Also, lots of the food that is indigenous of black society (Soul Food) is rich and either fried or cooked until any nutritional value is depleted. Growing up in the hood it was harder to access healthy food and to understand their importance. I didn’t realize vegetables could be purchased fresh for many years. Rich, unhealthy food is more easily accessed in the inner cities. Those are just some of the differences that I have experienced.

How does the stereotype of eating disorders as a white girl’s disease hurt disordered women of color, adult women and others who don’t fit the stereotype?

That belief keeps women of color isolated and feeling more alone and misunderstood. The picture of the classic eating disorder patient is a young white middle class girl. A recent study by USC , the first of its kind, documented young black girls with eating disorders. It found that black girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are 50 percent more likely that white women to develop bulimia. It makes us feel that we are not able to fit in within the eating disorder community. Eating disorders are about the need for control. What race or sex is immune to the need to cover up their shame, pain or anger with food, drugs, sex or alcohol?

The reason for the stereotype is the misconception that all black girls like to be heavy, which is corroborated by the rising figures of obesity in the black community. But even that is often the result of B.E.D. (Binge eating disorder). It takes a lot of bravery to come forward and admit that you have an eating disorder. Even when I did admit my problem, there was such a lack of understanding about eating disorders that people simply didn’t understand. They were not aware that laxative abuse, dieters teas, diuretic abuse and over-exercising are all forms of bulimia. Knowledge is power and once my community educates themselves on eating disorders I believe more people will be willing to come forward. We need to remove the stigma and shame first.

For the full interview, read here .