 |
Writer Stephanie Covington Armstrong discusses bulimia and the black community. |
Eating disorders affect 14-year-old white girls, their self-loathing mothers, and the skeletal idols of Us Weekly. At least that’s what we’re told - that it’s a white woman’s problem.
In her memoir, “Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat,’’ Stephanie Covington Armstrong fights those assumptions. Tracing her struggle with bulimia, she assesses how aspects of her ethnicity have allowed the disease to thrive.
Armstrong grew up in Brooklyn, in a broken home, fatherless, poverty-stricken, and sexually abused. She and her three sisters trudged through foster homes until eventually being returned to their mother. While she loved her mother, their relationship was tarnished by a lack of expression.
“She didn’t always remember to feed us, and there was no physical expression of love,’’ Armstrong said. “No ‘I love yous,’ no hugs. She thought if she was physically demonstrative with us, it would make us weak. . . . She always said she was so afraid the world would chew us up and spit us out.’’ Rather than nurturing her daughters with affection, she drenched them in literature and ideas, hoping that molding their minds would make them strong women.
While recalling a lifelong revulsion to food, Armstrong didn’t become bulimic until her 20s. Heartbroken and looking for a way to cope, food seemed like the easiest device.
“It wasn’t messy like drugs. It wasn’t out of control like alcohol. I could do it in private, and I could look OK,’’ she said. “I didn’t want my outsides to match my insides. If I looked normal, then you would never know that I didn’t love myself.’’
Armstrong said no one knew; in the black community, people don’t talk about their secrets. No one goes to therapy or eating-disorder facilities, so there’s no way to document such a widespread issue in the community.
“We’re taught that it’s not acceptable to not be a strong black woman,’’ she said.
After writing her book, however, Armstrong found women like herself coming out of the woodwork. She recalls a recent talk she gave at a high school in South Central Los Angeles, where 4 out of 10 girls, two black and two Latino, admitted that they were bulimic. “If it weren’t so sad it would be comedy how prevalent it is,’’ she said. “It just keeps reaffirming for me why I wrote this book.’’
Armstrong, who has a daughter and two stepdaughters, lives in Los Angeles. She will sign copies of her book Thursday at 5 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble at the Prudential Center.
HANNAH E. MARTIN
HOW HE GOT STARSTRUCK
Fulvio Melia, an author, professor, and astrophysicist, tucks some biography into his science pages in his new book, “Cracking the Einstein Code.’’ While describing black holes and their place in the universe, Melia divulges a bit about himself. He will discuss his book Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Coop, 1400 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge.REPORTING ON JOURNALISM
Roy Harris, longtime journalist and former editor of The Wall Street Journal, documents journalism at its finest in “Pulitzer’s Gold,’’ which maps the 90-year history of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Harris will discuss his study of the prize and the value of gold-standard journalism Thursday at 7 p.m. at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
