The Silent Relationship Between Black Women & Food

A Sacred Tides chapter — where healing, truth, and liberation meet in a Black woman’s body.

By Iya Omi

There’s a quiet relationship many Black women have with food that nobody really talks about.

Recently, I caught a glimpse of my reflection and saw something I hadn’t seen in years:

Clavicles.
Muscular calves.
Hamstrings actually trying to say hello.
A booty sitting a little higher.
A waist that’s trimming down.
The scale slowly sliding me out of the 230s into the 220s — numbers I haven’t seen in almost two decades.

It would be easy to say, “Look at my discipline. Look at my willpower.”

But that’s not the truth.

The real story is this:

My weight loss isn’t just proof that I’m committed.
It’s proof that I stopped using food as the storage unit for my pain.

It Was Never Just About Discipline

We love to act like obesity is a simple math problem:

Eat less. Move more. Be disciplined.

But for a lot of Black women, it’s not that simple.

Food becomes:

• the silent lover

• the therapist we can afford

• the friend that never rolls its eyes

• the one place we can put our shame and not be judged

And for many of us?

Food is the only thing that doesn’t abandon us.

We are alone a lot — emotionally, mentally, spiritually, sometimes physically.
We carry families. We carry trauma. We carry secrets. We carry expectations that would crack most people in half.

We’re exhausted and still expected to show up as “the strong one.”

So food becomes comfort.
And then the scale becomes punishment.

We eat to soothe.
Then feel guilty.
Then eat to quiet the guilt.
Then hate the number.
Then eat again to escape what the number triggers.

It’s a loop.
Not because we’re weak — but because we’re surviving.

Trauma Teaches the Body to Build Armor

Before I understood hormones or cortisol or emotional eating, I understood danger.

I survived things my body had no business enduring at the age I was:
homelessness, violence, incarceration, sexual abuse.

When your body has been a battlefield, it starts making decisions without asking your permission:

“If I’m bigger, maybe they won’t try me.”
“If I’m less ‘desirable,’ maybe I’ll be safer.”
“If I disappear behind this weight, maybe the world will leave me alone.”

Some women become smaller.
Some become silent.
Some disappear.

Some of us grow armor.

We don’t necessarily say, “I’m going to gain weight to protect myself.”
But on a soul level, the message is clear:

“Protect me.”

So the body wraps us in softness that doubles as a shield.
It builds a cushion between us and the world.

And then the world looks at that shield and calls it “lack of discipline.”

When Healing Starts on the Inside

Here’s the part nobody puts on the weight-loss flyers:

My body didn’t start changing because I suddenly became a gym rat.
It started changing when my spirit got tired of living in survival mode.

Yes, I adjusted my habits.
Yes, I started walking and strength training.
Yes, I made changes because my labs were telling the truth — prediabetes, cholesterol, all of it.

But the real shift began when I said:

“I’m tired of just surviving. I want to live.”

Little by little:

• I stopped using food to silence my feelings.

• I let myself be honest about what was hurting.

• I cried instead of eating my grief.

• I chose therapy.

• I prayed differently.

• I held myself accountable — not with shame, but with love.

That’s when my body responded.

Clavicles re-emerged.
My walk got lighter.
My face softened.
The fog lifted.
The weight started coming off — not just from my body, but from my spirit.

This is not a “before and after” story.
This is a liberation story.

Why Black Women Need Grace, Not Shame

Let me say something clearly:

Your ability to “get healthy,” meal prep, hit the gym, meditate, or track macros depends heavily on the life you are living.

I’m 53 years old.
I work four days a week.
No toddlers waking me up at night.
No kids’ homework spread across the dining room table.
I have pockets of time that younger mothers, caregivers, and women working jobs that do not take into account the importance of work/life balance simply do not have.

So when I talk about walking miles and lifting weights, please understand:

I am not the standard.
I am a woman whose current life allows that level of focus.

A lot of Black women are trying to heal in circumstances that don’t give them space to exhale, let alone meal prep and hit the gym five days a week.

• Single mothers

• Women working two jobs

• Caregivers

• Women drowning in survival mode financially, emotionally, spiritually

They are not “undisciplined.”
They are tired.

Wanting health and having the capacity for it are not the same thing.

That’s why Black women don’t need more shame.
We need more grace.

Weight Isn’t Just About Food — It’s About Wounds

There was a time when I said, “I’ll just be a big woman forever.”

That wasn’t self-love.
That was resignation.

Underneath it was:

“I don’t think I can change.”
“I don’t think I’m worth the effort.”
“I don’t think healing is for me.”

And that’s the thing:

Weight isn’t always about food.
It’s about what we’ve lived through.

For some women, healing starts with therapy, rest, and emotional work.
For me, it started with my body — and as the weight came off, the emotional fog lifted.

My mind sharpened.
My emotions softened.
My spirit woke up.

The physical shift unclogged my inner world.

But whichever direction it starts, the point is the same:

We need to stop treating Black women’s bodies like proof of their moral failure
and start seeing them as evidence of their story.

Cravings Are Messages, Not Evidence of “Weakness”

When I really started paying attention, I noticed something:

What I craved often told on me.

Sweet → Softness & Love

Sweet cravings showed up when I felt unloved, lonely, heavy-hearted.
Sugar wasn’t the craving — affection was.

Salty & Crunchy → Anger

Crunching was the argument I didn’t feel safe enough to have.

Heavy Comfort Foods → Nostalgia & Safety

Macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, cornbread —
those were me trying to go home, back to warmth and childhood security.

Cravings aren’t failures.
They’re signals.

Signals that we need:

• a boundary

• a nap

• a cry

• a conversation

• support

• closeness

• comfort

• rest

Once I started asking, “What do I really need right now?”
food stopped being the battlefield and became a messenger.

Relearning Comfort Without Betraying Myself

Food used to be my:

• first responder

• therapist

• celebration

• shield

It did everything except heal me.

Now comfort looks different:

• A warm bath

• Stillness with tea

• Rest without guilt

• Breathing with my hand on my chest

• Walking to move emotion

• Saying no without apology

I’m not perfect.
I still have moments where old habits call my name —
but I don’t abandon myself anymore.

I recover with compassion, not punishment.

That’s growth.

A Love Letter to the Black Woman Reading This

If you see yourself anywhere in these words —
in the late-night eating, the soft armor, the exhaustion sitting in your bones —

hear me clearly:

You are not a failure.
You are not broken.
You are not “letting yourself go.”
You are a Black woman who learned how to survive in a world that never cared if you lived.

But survival isn’t the end of your story.

You deserve:

• comfort that heals, not harms

• health that fits your real life

• a body that feels like home

• food that nourishes instead of numbs

• grace instead of judgment

If the only thing you can do today is whisper, “I want better,”
that’s enough.

Let your healing be slow, tender, and yours.

Food doesn’t have to be where you store your pain anymore.
Your body can become the altar where your freedom lives.

This piece is part of a larger body of work I’m writing for my forthcoming book, Sacred Tides: A Black Woman’s Journey Back to Herself.