Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, we're tackling questions many of us overlook.

What does food have to do with mental health?

And is your dinner plate affecting your well-being?

From emotional eating to nutrients that support the mind, we uncover how food shapes our mood.

Coming up next, stay with us.

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[upbeat music] ♪ Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

Today, we're diving into a powerful conversation about the relationship between mental health and what's on our plates.

We often think of food as fuel, but what if it's also medicine for our minds and sometimes a reflection of our emotional struggles?

What we eat feeds more than our bodies.

It shapes our minds and emotions.

To help break down our understanding of how food and mental health go hand in hand, our clinical addiction specialist and owner of Right Size Perspective, Sarah Wilder, and with her is registered dietician, certified diabetes care and education specialist, as well as the co-founder of Eat Well Exchange, Jasmine Westbrook-Fargo.

Thank you both for being here.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, I think this is a really interesting conversation when we think about the intersection of mental health and eating.

I know in the Black culture, specifically, food is, like, is key, right?

All gatherings, everything.

Sarah, I want to start with you.

I've often heard the phrase, "Mental health is our overall health."

Can you unpack what that means and how food is interwoven into that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, mental health is a lot of things, but I'll put it like this, is your car doesn't go without an engine, and your brain is the engine of your body.

We work from top down.

So mental health is a lot of different things.

It's an outside change, but it's also, like, internal understanding of what are your emotions impacting your body, how do your thoughts influence your behaviors.

So a lot of mental health and how it correlates with food is, like, how do you push your brain and your body to work together and then communicate with yourself to get it going.

- Get it going.

Jasmine, when we think about trauma and, you know, suppressed feelings of things that have happened in the past, how does that relate to how we eat and our behavior with food?

- Yeah, it has a lot to do with it, especially with our relationship to food and just different situations that we've been through.

I've seen before where hunger and fullness cues are impacted, where we're skipping those.

- Hunger and fullness cues?

- Yes, yes.

So meaning, like, we're able to really-- our body's able to signal when we're hungry.

I see a lot of people that have issues with that, where it's like a numbness, and they're not hungry, and then all of a sudden, emotionally, something hits them, and now they're starving, right, which causes you to overeat.

There's also issues, too, when it comes to, like, how we're culturally raised as well.

Even though it's not intended to be that way, sometimes we learn to eat more on our plate than what we probably should.

I call it the "clean plate syndrome," where we're, like, literally eating the last crumb or getting that last piece of gravy from the plate, right, because we were taught not to, you know, waste food, in a sense.

And then there's just so many other things, like stress levels, not recognizing, like, how what we crave can impact also our bodies, and it's a sign that we're stressed, because oftentimes when you're stressed, your cortisol levels go up, and so when those levels go up, you have those cravings of, like, sugar, salt, or high-fatty foods, and you eat those things for that temporary, oh, comfort food, right?

But in the long term, if that's consistent and you have chronic cortisol levels, like, going up, that becomes an issue for our bodies.

-Sierra, what's happening in our brain?

When she said fullness and hunger cues are not being, I guess, registered properly, what's happening in our minds to make that happen?

-So it's not only in our mind, but it's also from our mind to our guts.

The vagus nerve is the information pathway, so when we're in a state of stress, we can't differentiate between a stressor of, like, "Oh, my gosh, I have something in my teeth," versus, "Oh, my gosh, I'm being chased by a cyber-toothed tiger anymore."

We live in a modern day -- Like, our bodies react, and then our nervous system starts shutting down different parts of our bodies, our digestive system.

So what she's talking about is the hormone, the endocrine system starts to be compromised when we're overthinking something about, you know, "How are we going to do on a test?"

or "How are we going to do on PBS North Carolina talking about this?"

Right?

-Right.

-Like, we -- Our body starts to conserve energy for us to be able to survive, get out of a state of threat.

And that's where a lot of the -- Why I talk about this as being the centerpiece of all recovery is we have to learn how that goes on in day-to-day.

We're not stopping that.

It's a natural mechanism for us to be human.

We have to learn how to drive our mind.

-Do you see food at the center of most mental health issues?

-I'm a little unbiased, but yes, absolutely.

So, yeah, it is how we nourish ourselves.

It's how we keep our bodies grounded when we are nervous.

Now, overeating can also be problematic just as much as undereating is.

-Let's talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how does that basic -- Our basic needs connect to mental health, and then I want you to add into that, too.

-Yeah, absolutely.

So, I start with Maslow's.

I think it's just simple.

It's in the shape of the food pyramid, actually, that, you know, internally, we can't sustain certain levels of stress for so long if we don't have our basic needs, which is food, shelter, safety, water.

And honestly, with modern-day, you know, research coming out as breath and oxygen, if we do not have those fundamental building blocks, yes, we can have relationships, but they may not be healthy because we're now skewing our perception of, you know, what did this person say to me?

If I'm in a chronic state of stress, anything information-wise coming into our brains is going to have the filter of that feeling that we're going through.

So, it's not going to be perfect.

It doesn't need to be perfect to be able to be successful and healthy, but we have to learn of, like, okay, how long can I actually sustain without some type of nourishment or undernourishment, and it's going to affect how I see the world and move through the world.

- Yeah.

Did you want to add anything to that, Jaz?

- Yeah, I completely agree.

I mean, I see health in, like, not just aspects of nutrition, but it's mental, it's emotional, and sometimes, unfortunately, we aren't taught those things, right?

We're taught a lot of times to survive.

And so, even so, whether it's through social media or just conversation, when we think about it, we're praised for being able to survive, right?

But I always say, like, sometimes resilience is tiring.

Like, you have to step back and figure out and have a self-assessment of, like, out of, you know, these complex, you know, components of, like, health, what piece am I missing to the puzzle that can actually, you know, give me the 2.0 version of myself?

So, I completely agree.

- Yeah.

Sarah mentioned the food pyramid earlier.

We've since learned that what is changed into the-- - To the plate now, yes.

- Yes, sure, that.

We've shared it before, but I think it's great to share now.

- Yes, absolutely.

So, it's called the My Plate, and it's pretty much modeling a nine-inch plate around, and half of your plate will be non-starchy vegetables.

Think of, like, I like to think about cultural foods like cabbage, collards, okra.

Those are non-starchy vegetables.

And also, fruit will be half of that plate as well, so a combination.

And you think about those colors.

Those colors are antioxidants, and that has a lot to do with our mental health.

Because antioxidants help fight not only cancer cells, but they help nourish our brain cells too.

And so, we can't forget that that half of that plate can be a huge component when it comes to, like, being mentally stable.

The other half of the plate is divided into two, and so that's where you have your whole grains and your protein.

Now, if you sometimes look at, like, social media or just different resources, and they'll say you can't eat carbohydrates, right?

Grains are not great for you.

- Right.

- But grains have minerals in them that actually help our mental health.

- I think that's where sometimes the confusion comes in.

- Yes, yes.

- Like, well, on one end, it's not good for us.

On the other end, it is good for us.

So how do we-- - How do you distinguish, right?

I'm telling you that my plate is research-driven.

It's proven, right?

When it comes to carbohydrates, grains is just one part of that.

And when I say grains, I mean, like, rice, pasta, bread.

Beans can even fit into that category too, which is also a very great food for mental health.

But it's more about, it shouldn't be half of the plate.

It should be a portion, right?

Enough.

And everybody has different needs too.

I'm sitting here at 5'10".

I have different needs than somebody that's 5'5".

And that last portion is protein.

Protein is very essential for our health.

Whenever you have carbs and protein together, it helps really, keeps a steady flow of your blood sugars whenever you have carbs and protein together.

So that's why it's so important to have the complete, the plate as a whole, as a balance, instead of just focusing only on one area and overeating or undereating in any specific food group on that plate.

- I love having the two of you here 'cause the next question I think needs the response from both.

But how long does it take to rewire yourself to eat better?

And I think it's on Sarah's side and on your side, right?

So, Jasmine, maybe you start from the practicality of it, accessibility of it.

And then, Sarah, maybe you tell us, like, how do we rewire our brains?

- Yeah, yeah.

I would say rewiring, of course, starts with a mindset change.

Like we've mentioned, there's been a lot of information out there where it can be easy to be confused.

But I think it's good to try different things to see what works for you in your lifestyle, in your life cycle even.

Because, again, someone that's 30 is gonna have different needs than someone that's 60, right?

So it's very important to maybe start with a mindset shift and try that habit consistently.

We like to take on a lot at one time.

And then when we're not successful, we're very hard on ourselves.

We have a lot of shame and guilt around it.

And that, in turn, impacts our mental capacity to process things, how things went.

So I think it's very important to start with one thing at a time.

Most people will say 21 days, right?

- Okay, I was gonna ask how many days.

- Just give us a number.

- 21 days.

(laughing) But honestly, everybody's is different, you know?

- And it's okay if we regress.

- Yes, exactly.

- I think that's a big thing.

Anytime I go on a diet, I'm like, it's okay if I want a cheeseburger.

- Yeah, it's all right.

- You need a cheeseburger.

- Right, right.

- Sometimes.

(laughing) - How long does it take to rewire the brain?

- Unfortunately, I can't give you a specific number.

I'm so sorry.

But in my industry, I come from a social work background, and we're looking at systemic change.

And I tend to work with complex cases.

But our answer is for everything is it depends.

You change in motion, and time passes as you change.

So you may fall down and scrape your knee the next day after most people, unfortunately.

It's like when you start to take radical responsibility for your health and your life, life is gonna start lifin' extra.

It's gonna seem like it's more than it was before.

And that's just because you're paying attention to it.

And our brains protect us in a lot of ways.

So it really depends on how can you fall down and get back up with any commitment to change.

And that is not only just your diet.

That's not only just how you nourish your body.

It's how you communicate to yourself.

It's how you eat, not necessarily what you eat is how I encourage people to approach it.

Is that if you're eating under a state of stress, I had to be here at a certain time this morning, and I'm just eating while I drive, your body is going to interpret that differently.

- I do that almost every day, Sarah.

- Not calling anyone out.

I'm not calling anyone out.

But it's 'cause I've done it too.

But it's trying to do one thing at a time.

And it is retraining your brain in all aspects of life slowly as they come.

And consistency has to include inconsistency.

That's how we learn things.

Because not every plan is going to go accordingly in how we want it to go.

And that's just also how I try to help people understand your brain is designed to be all or nothing.

So when you're getting healthy, when you set those New Year's resolutions, you want to see change, but we also don't want it to take time.

So we're usually not accounting for a variable of life that it's not quite sustainable.

And inconsistency, falling off-- not to use a controversial term, but falling off the wagon, I'm not promoting any type of relapse of any kind.

But that's really where you're learning about how to be consistent for all the things that you want to do come.

- I think, too, we've kind of gotten used to finding quick fixes over the years.

I don't know how many fad diets I've tried.

- Any medications.

- Yeah, and now we've got GLP-1s that people are actually being able to access.

I mean, it's been around for a long time, right?

And it's nothing new, but now regular consumers are able to access it.

When we look at fad dieting and quick fixes, that's not really retraining ourselves, though, right?

- It's in the same direction.

I'm not going to disprove any kind of medication therapy.

It's there because, you know, life is hard.

We don't have to struggle more than we absolutely need to.

But I tell my clients, you know, try to imagine life without walking with a crutch after you break your leg because you don't want to be walking around life having to have some kind of support system that honestly just kind of makes it complicated.

Your armpits are going to hurt after a while.

- It's a tool, right?

It's a resource, right?

- It's a resource.

But we also have to, unfortunately, do doses of information because, yeah, I want people to understand that GLP-1 can help if you have, you know, a lot of things going on and just to get the weight off.

But it's also going to start impacting your body that your brain, unfortunately, it will protect you from.

It's not going to-- I see this often when people come into therapy, not just anything having to do with the relationship with food, but they start seeing a psychiatrist and the symptoms alleviate enough that therapy just kind of like, "Oh, I'm good."

And that makes it difficult for my role of like, "Okay, now I have to present some problems."

And as much fun as I made it sound, it's like I stress people out for a living, consensually.

- Is that up for it?

- But it is--it's a slow process.

But unfortunately, when you take the pain away and even short-term, your brain's going to be like, "Oh, we can just keep doing this."

Then your tolerance builds.

It's not just on an illicit substance.

It's on all of the substances.

It's in every aspect of life that we are actually quite adaptable creatures.

- Jasmine, how do you promote-- because, you know, we're talking about-- it's okay to have the cheeseburger, but how do we promote comfort eating while also balancing nutritional eating?

- Yeah, I think you said it, though.

It's the balance of it, right?

I often think about, like, being around social environments, whether it's a baby shower, a funeral, a birthday.

Food is going to be there.

That is what in our culture we have made.

But it's an equal balance.

I think it's actually healthy to have a balance.

If you're very restrictive, I often question, like, what are you trying to control?

Because you can't control other things in your life.

And that restriction leads to you being malnourished.

That restriction leads to actually increasing your risk for certain medical conditions that could have been prevented.

And also just, like, the aesthetics of it, too.

I think people feel like they have to fit into a certain size, and that can oftentimes impact them not being socially, you know, engaged with certain events because they know food is going to be around.

And so you have to think about, you know, is this costing me one of the most important aspects of health, which is social environment and who we're around and the people we surround ourselves with, because that also keeps us alive, too.

I think it's also important for people in those environments to recognize, too, not to ask--I don't know, I always get this-- "Why aren't you eating?

Don't you want some food?"

"Well, maybe I'm just not hungry.

Maybe I don't like the food."

But there always seems to be this pressure to eat.

Oh, yeah, because food is love.

Food represents so many different things to different people.

Food, for me--I know growing up-- food represents my youth to my parents, because if I can offer you food, I'm feeding my baby girl, you know?

And so there's ways to kind of come back with that.

One example I love is, like, if someone's offering you, "Oh, I made your favorite apple pie."

Maybe you weren't even thinking about the apple pie.

You didn't smell it.

It just didn't cross your mind.

But grandmother offered you the apple pie, and so what you can do is say, "You know, I don't want any apple pie right now.

Maybe I can take some home later, but instead, could you get me a glass of water, because I am thirsty."

You know?

Ask for something else that that person can give you, so that way they can see that I'm still giving you something.

And it is hard sometimes, especially with the holidays coming up.

You're going to be at holiday parties.

There's going to be the food table.

There's ways to navigate.

I know people who are like, "I'm not going to eat all day so that I can go to Mom's house or whoever's house and eat."

And one thing that we do, too, that we actually started last year, was yes, Thanksgiving and all these holidays are about food because our culture will make it about food.

But in what other ways can I add other behaviors?

So last year, with my husband and his family, what we decided to do is run a marathon.

Oh.

Nice.

Right?

Thanksgiving morning, we're going to get some activity in.

We're not going to surround the holiday with just food.

We're going to surround it with spending quality time with each other, but also getting some movement to nourish our brains and nourish our bodies.

And that's something that we plan on continuing to do.

How can we engage and, I guess, rewrite what our traditions can be like?

Yeah.

Sarah, how does unresolved trauma that we hold on to create emotional attachments to food?

So, you know, kind of to play off what Jasmine was saying is food is love.

When we are children, when we don't really have much responsibility in the world other than to just be a kid, which unfortunately is changing, but I'll stay off the topic, is we--our parents communicate.

It's a form of communication, and it evokes emotions in us that our brains start to collect data.

I talk in very, I feel like, hopefully relatable terms of-- we are a processing center, so if I feel joy because I passed a test and my father brought me out for ice cream, I now have an association with sugar and sweets, and I'm not to demonize it because our bodies and our brains need sugar, but if I have any kind of rupture now in that relationship or negative association with that parent, then now that food memory is now compromised within my loss or in my grief.

So as one example, and it can be very diverse, but it's essentially just it hooks right on.

Like, oh, yeah, ice cream.

I can't tell you how many times-- I love going to get ice cream.

After we get out of school, my grandmother would take me to my father, and that was my story, was--and then-- okay, I put it up, just I try to talk of my story, so I'm not coming after anyone, but if you relate to it, you relate to it.

I grew up in a divorced family, so I--and from a young age where I don't really have core memories, like two or three, and so I grew up going between two houses.

Although, you know, three or four miles apart, I still stayed in the same school, there is a degree of stress that as a 5-, 6-year-old--I'm not, you know-- not every--like, no therapy in the '90s was, you know, it was there, but it wasn't there, and we also honestly don't really-- didn't know just how impactful this was, this connection, and to be honest with you, I have not met many of people in my profession that talk about this core issue of where does it start, and because a lot of times we're just talking about the outside influences of it.

But back to the point of, like, I started using things to naturally ground myself, so we're actually self-serving organisms.

Our brains find the solution for us, but we're at battle with what we think the solution actually is.

So that restriction of, like, "Oh, I'm going to be nervous, so let me not eat," and I was like, "Huh, that is--" or, like, we wake up nauseous.

This is such a common one I see in my practice is, "I'm so nauseous in the morning, I'm anxious," but you're also already at work before you've even gotten out of bed.

You're mentally in a place where you're anticipating, and now your body is just trying to--it's literally trying to ground you, so food is actually quite--it's a healthy coping skill, but there are so many typically more negative-associated experiences with the behavior of nourishing yourself that your brain is like, "No, let's just not do that."

And that is so common.

I see it with people who don't look like me, unrestricted eaters, and they can't necessarily--yeah, perception is tricky.

It's like you're not going to be able to relate to someone who may be-- I was on the opposite end of the spectrum of an overeater and binging as a way of trying to ground myself because I was taking care of other people.

And I didn't change my profession doing the work on myself.

I had to find small ways to make it make sense and accommodate, "Okay, I'm a social--I'm actually not--I have to go socialize as much as I don't always want to, but I have to do that because that's also grounding me because if I feel lonely and I don't know how to communicate and tell people about myself, I had to learn a lot of that as a therapist.

A few minutes left, and I kind of want to give Jasmine the opportunity.

We have busy schedules.

We're all over all the time.

For me--I'll speak for me--I find it hard to eat well.

What are some ways that we can still eat well and stay true to our bodies in that nutritional fashion?

Oh, my gosh, I can give you so many things, but I'll give you a couple.

One that just came up for me is learning how to repurpose food ingredients.

Very important not only for time, like saving time, but also cost because food costs are going up, and we want to be more mindful of that when people are feeding their families.

That can look like getting beans or getting lentils, rice, vegetables.

That's okay.

Getting your protein, right?

Any type of protein that's lean.

It can be chicken, it can be fish.

Actually, omega-3s are great for the brain because our brain-- the cells in our brain are pretty much omega-3s.

So getting that from sources of nuts and seeds, you can get that from different oils.

But anyway, you don't have to eat beans.

[laughter] But it is important to find those ingredients that are more convenient where we're changing the season right now, so maybe we want something more savory and more hot-tempered where you get soups and stews.

Thinking about how you can make different types or getting your leftover vegetables and adding that to soups and stews from maybe a previous meal that you had.

So I think that's a great way to kind of look at it too, and do a little bit of research.

You can go from burritos without the beans if you don't want to, and then also transition that to maybe inside the burrito is a topping, and a tortilla could be like a side, almost like a piece of bread.

So I have a picky child.

My other child, he'll eat whatever.

My daughter, I don't like that.

She's like me.

I don't like that.

How do you make sure that kids get nutrition?

And I know that's probably a big question.

We've got like one minute.

Get them in the kitchen.

Get them in the kitchen.

Even before the kitchen, when you go grocery shopping, say, "Pick whatever vegetable you want."

In this produce aisle, pick whatever you want.

Even if you're not going to eat it, pick it.

Let's maybe slice it together.

Get them in the kitchen to see what it's like because oftentimes kids don't know where their food comes from, and when they start to learn where their food comes from, it helps.

And when they're in the kitchen cutting, they smell it, they taste it, they touch it.

They see you eating it.

Being the model is very important as a parent too.

So I think having a game around it.

You pick a vegetable.

They pick a vegetable.

Put it together.

Let's see what you all make.

That's the way to get the kids involved.

I'll try that.

I'll try that.

Sarah, share with our viewers how to get in touch with you if they wanted to reach out.

Yeah, absolutely.

You can find me.

You can Google me, S-A-R-A Wilder, W-I-L-D-E-R, L-C-S-W dot com, or mostly on Instagram or Facebook @rightsize_perspective.

And just trying to live mental health in action and show people recovery.

Unfortunately, it's not done in the therapy room.

It's done out in the kitchen and getting back into your life and really connecting and being mindful about how you move forward.

Thank you, Jasmine.

How do folks reach out to you?

So they can go to eatwellexchange.org or they can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and also YouTube @eatwellexchange.

If you go to YouTube, you will see videos where you can cook along with us.

And if you subscribe to our website, you actually get a free guide of herbs and spices to use with different types of food.

Beautiful.

Sarah Wilder, Jasmine Westbrook Fargo, thank you so much.

I appreciate you both for being here and for sharing.

I think I've learned a little bit.

Hopefully our viewers have too.

Yes.

Thanks.

And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on PBSNC.org/BlackIssuesForum and on the PBS Video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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