Alishia McCullough, licensed clinical mental health therapist, teaches readers the overlooked impact of imbalanced eating on the Black community in her book Reclaiming the Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within (The Dial Press, 2024). Specializing in somatic therapy and trauma healing, McCullough outlines how centuries of racism have impacted Black individuals. She argues that clinical practice must go beyond standardization and become more inclusive of BIPOC practitioners and cultures. Reclaiming the Black Body is a hopeful call to action regarding how society can embrace body liberation to break free of the systemic oppressions which impact body image and perception.

In conversation with World Voices Festival and Literary Programs Manager, Sarah Dillard (MSW), McCoullough outlines how generational trauma stems from the “original wound” of slavery, how she celebrates her history through meals, and why she decided to include guided mindfulness practices throughout the book. (Bookshop; Barnes & Noble)


In the author’s note to Reclaiming the Black Body, you talk about the #AmplifyMelanatedVoices movement you started in 2020 to center the voices of Black people and mute white noise. What was it like using social media as an advocacy tool when it can often be a source of dysmorphia and comparison? Did you have any hesitations before turning to the platform?

Using social media as an social activism tool was an outlet and also posed risk for me. My educational training as a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor ingrained the importance of maintaining anonymity as a therapist, and emphasized that the less people knew about your personal life the more professional you were viewed. I had many hesitations about using social media, but ultimately I took the risk and created my social media page by focusing on topics that I was interested in, these topics blended elements of mental health, such as eating disorders in Black communities, body liberation, and racial justice. In 2020, I was intentional about creating social media posts through the lens of offering education and raising awareness about pertinent happenings and conversations in the world. However, as I advanced in my profession, I realized that a big part of showing up as an anti-oppressive and liberatory therapist was recognizing that I could not separate what was happening in the world from my professional persona. I was also being impacted by racialized trauma and COVID-19 and was not immune to the distress that my clients were also experiencing around these realities. I wanted to offer another option for folks who were looking to learn and be in conversation about the deeper ways that we could begin to shift society towards collective healing and liberation. 

I began to practice more discernment with what I shared, while also showing up authentically and vulnerable, this allowed me to use my voice, my story, and personal experiences in a way that resonated and helped more people. I found that my clients respected and appreciated my refinement, and over time I was able to speak out about systemic issues in the mental health field through the global #AmplifyMelanatedVoices movement. I didn’t want to just use my page to highlight problems, but to also offer possibilities and action. It was not enough to just talk about change, but to become it, which is why I began to show how I was embodying the healing so that I could offer a framework for others who were also experiencing something similar to me and were ready to take the next step.  

A colleague of yours commented that your culturally informed therapeutic practices were applying a “granular lens” to the issue of imbalanced eating. Why is it important to go beyond standardization?

The standardization of eating disorders focuses solely on one presentation, typically young thin white women, but this leaves out so many people. My colleague’s comment was an example of her own white privilege because she does not have to look around and think about the experiences of anyone else because the system has structured her experience as the standard. The idea of having to offer space to other communities feels like too much work when your experiences are consistently validated and represented, everything else feels like going out of your way or taking on as she stated “too much of a granular lens.” This is why it is important to move beyond what has been standardized and expand our capacity to hold multiple experiences as truth, because my colleague is not an anomaly. There are many mental health therapists and other wellness practitioners who knowingly or unknowingly feel the same way. Therefore they are not adept at treating eating disorders or healing eating imbalances because they don’t have a framework for how these conditions are present in bodies of people who are non white. As a result, entire communities of people are left without the adequate care and support that we need. 

The introduction to Reclaiming the Black Body includes the statistic that “17% of clinicians identified Black women’s eating behaviors as problematic” compared to 44% for white women and 41% for LatinX. How does this connect to the dehumanization of Black people? What changes can researchers and clinicians make to be more inclusive?

There needs to be more research intentionally led by Black researchers who not only have the academic and professional expertise, but also have the lived experience within the community to know the signs to look out for and begin to frame their research and studies around a well rounded understanding of eating imbalances in Black communities. The reason why I feel that this work needs to come from within the community is because even when research claims to be “unbiased,” everything from how the question or concern is being approached is influenced by the understanding of the researcher in question, and their context for how they frame and approach their inquiries. It is not a requirement in doctorate programs for students to be completely anti-oppressive from their own internal biases when it comes to the communities they are studying. From this standpoint I think that Black researchers are important but also need to be funded and supported so that they can begin to disseminate their findings to other researchers and practitioners in the field from all backgrounds; this will serve as a roadmap for how to accurately assess, diagnose, treat and heal eating disorders. It is important that this work comes from people in the community and is led by us because it systematically empowers and amplifies our voices by honoring that we are the experts of our lived experiences and know what is best for our communities to heal these conditions and imbalances. 

It is important that this work comes from people in the community and is led by us because it systematically empowers and amplifies our voices by honoring that we are the experts of our lived experiences and know what is best for our communities to heal these conditions and imbalances.

“The original wound” of slavery is referenced as the point of trauma and root cause of imbalanced eating in the Black community. You connect the stored feeling of disembodiment and lack of control in the colonial time period to the present day. Can you briefly explain how intergenerational trauma operates, that is, how it is passed down and examples of where it can be observed?

Intergenerational trauma is a specific type of trauma that is passed down from parent to child, and spans across the time frame of multiple generations. The presentation of this trauma may look different based on the context that the person lives in, but the impact of the trauma is the same. It is distressing and feels inescapable and there are somatic imprints or responses that when triggered or activated can result in an array of disruption and imbalance in a person’s quality of life. Intergenerational trauma is both learned from observing behaviors of people in our families in communities as a blueprint for what is has been normalized, and it is also passed down biologically through our epigenetics, which are genetics that can be changed by on environmental factors such as experiences of trauma resulting in higher propensity of stress, disease, illness and inflammation in the body. For example when a woman is pregnant, she holds the life of her unborn child, but also within her child is the formation of eggs of the grandchild as well, so within one body there are three generations. In this womb space, the emotions and experiences that the mom deals with are stored in her body, and then begin to set the blueprint for how the child will navigate the world moving forward. For example, when I think about slavery, I think about the widespread experience of undernourishment. If the mother is consistently undernourished and begins to develop a relationship of fear around food and scarcity, that experience and the emotions become somaticized/stored into her body, and dictate the relationship that her child will have with food and nourishment, and her grandchild. Now if this occurs for generations without any interruption to this traumatic experience we have people in the year 2025 who have an imbalanced relationship with food, but no context for how we got here. Furthermore, we have a mainstream narrative that believes if a certain amount of time has passed that the experiences of trauma we have had in Black communities is no longer relevant which further prevents us from getting the support that we need by denying and dismissing the ways that trauma is stored in the body and can have implications even generations beyond the original wound. Especially when the pain still continues as we currently exist in a society that is still unjust to Black people and contributes to issues of food deserts and food apartheid. This experience can be observed by being in what is most common known as a binge-restrict cycle, where someone may eat large quantities of food because they may not be connected to their bodies, or they may have an unknown fear of not knowing when there next meal will come, then feeling sick or uncomfortable which contributes to a period of starvation where there body then responds by increasing there inner communication signals for hunger and activates hormones for food to nourish their bodies, but without awareness and also skills to address this pattern the binge pattern begins again. Another common pattern I have seen is undernourishment, commonly presented as eating very small amounts of food or rationing out food so that someone will have enough. 

Why did you decide to include guided mindfulness practices and questions along with the text? What did you want readers to gain from those sections?

The guided mindfulness practices and the journal prompts are an opportunity for folks to slow down and integrate the information from the chapters. For example each chapter opens with introducing a theme that the reader and I will explore together, and throughout the chapter. I make a case for why that theme is imperative to discuss in this moment in time, by offering concrete examples from my own life and the clients and colleagues I have worked with over the years, I close off by offering practical tools and reflections for folks to sit with as they think of ways that they can begin to heal. I was intentional about not just stating a problem, but also offering a pathway to begin to clear out all of the trauma that we have experienced that keeps us disconnected from our bodies and in a consistent imbalance relationship with food. The mindfulness practices and questions fortify my intention by encouraging folks to connect back to their body in the moment and then have space to reflect on all that they are learning and how they want to move forward from that moment. 

In what ways was writing Reclaiming the Black Body similar to the self-reflective work you talk about throughout the book?

Writing this book required a tremendous amount of time, energy and emotional capacity. I realized very early on in my writing process that this journey would require me to unlearn and heal my own oppressive indoctrination as well. I knew that I would need to attend my own talk therapy and somatic therapy sessions. It was important to enroll in classes and training so that I could embody and experience ancestral healing, feminine embodiment, and somatic healing, all themes that show up throughout the book. I had to do my own research into trauma, Black food, and explore the science behind our relationships with our bodies from both a westernized and non-western perspective. Throughout this journey, I paused practicing mental health therapy so that I could truly invest the work that I was doing to birth this book. I was intentional about my own practices and woke up with a routine of connecting with my own body, and creating intentional space for the chapters to arrive to me when they were ready. I honestly had to go through my own process of reclaiming my own Black body, without feeling too much pressure to rush the process. I hope that people can feel that process as they read this book. 

I was intentional about not just stating a problem, but also offering a pathway to begin to clear out all of the trauma that we have experienced that keeps us disconnected from our bodies and in a consistent imbalance relationship with food.

Family Systems Theory comes up as one way Black women can restore and rebuild from the trauma and racism that is causing an eating imbalance. What other tools or methods would you recommend?

When it comes to healing trauma and racism that has caused eating imbalances, I want to say that this is not a one size fits all approach. It is a process of learning to listen to our bodies so that they can guide us into the best healing modalities for us with the resources that we have access to at the time. For example, I have supported clients and launched coaching programs that were first about establishing safety and understanding of the nervous system and how our nervous system impacts our relationship with eating. When we are dysregulated and in distress this impacts the way that we eat, we may miss meals or our body may disconnect or shut down our communication signals that tell us we need to nourish ourselves. It is also common that we may not choose the best foods that support our bodies, the first part of identifying and addressing these patterns, is being able to regulate our nervous systems and connect to our bodies so that we can show up and offer ourselves what we need from a place that is honoring and attuned to what our body is communicating each moment. This is revolutionary for Black women and femmes because for generations our society has encouraged us to do the opposite, to ignore our bodies and push through our pain for the purpose of productivity. When we begin the process of divorcing ourselves from that pattern we get to experience more freedom in our bodies and relationship with how we nourish ourselves holistically. 

Body Liberation compared to Body Positivity offers not only autonomy but also puts the onus of change on the system rather than the individual by “doing the critical work of naming and examining why we don’t love or feel positive about ourselves in the first place.” (p. 242). In what ways do you hope Reclaiming the Black Body fits into this movement? 

Reclaiming the Black body gets to the root of our suffering, and gently guides readers into uprooting the systems and beliefs that continue to contribute to their pain and prevent them from living more fully. This invitation offers depth by centering liberation and healing at the epicenter of the journey, which allows for the change that we make to be sustainable and self defining meaning that each person gets to decide what this journey and experience looks like for them. I offer tools and guidance but the fun part, and perhaps the challenging part for many, is that this journey is about connecting to intuition and trusting your own body so that the work within yourself is long lasting. It is my hope that that level of change will also begin to inspire other people to engage in similar work that is supportive of collective liberation. 

Soul food is a big part of Black culture, and you write about how doctors often assume food choice is the cause of health disparities thus offering white, Eurocentric advice on eating habits. What are some of your favorite foods that come from your Black identity, and how do you celebrate your history through meals?

I am from Washington, North Carolina which is located in the south-east part of the United States. I come from a lineage of farmers who raised animals on the land and often ate food like collard greens, pork, molasses bread and more. These are staples that I look forward to tasting when I go back home. I celebrate these meals by being intentional about visiting my family for holidays and also taking part in the preparation process. While my diet has changed over the years based on where I was living and my level of access to food, my intention is to find ways to modify but still honor these foods and pass them down to my children as well. 

I offer tools and guidance but the fun part, and perhaps the challenging part for many, is that this journey is about connecting to intuition and trusting your own body so that the work within yourself is long lasting.

The chapter on internalized misogynoir and intersectionality which revolved around a social media post from Lizzo struck me as a critical point about community and the importance of supporting one another. Who are some Black women who have dismantled white standards for you and what impact did this have on your work?

There are so many amazing Black women to name just a few, but specifically I remember my worldview expanding with the work of Sonya Renee Taylor and Dr. Sabrina Strings, both of these women offered a framework into exploring the Black body from the perspective of gentleness and love while also offering research and encouraging me to show up unapologetically in my body. I feel like they were the early pioneers who gave language for issues like eating disorders, body liberation, and addressing fatphobia in Black communities. 


Alishia McCullough (she/her) is a licensed clinical mental health therapist and founder of Black and Embodied Counseling and Consulting PLLC. She specializes in somatic therapy, trauma healing, and eating disorder treatment with a focus on cultivating embodiment and fostering liberation. Alishia also runs the self-paced online course Reimagining Eating Disorders 101.