The recent Ladies’ Day event, where I presented “Happy, Healthy and Free,” attracted a large number of African-American women and other women of color. The topics I covered clearly resonated with many attendees. After the presentation I sat down to lunch with several of these thoughtful women and learned more about their backgrounds and perspectives. A few themes kept emerging that are directly relevant to health and well-being.
One woman at my table, Wendy, is 68 years old and not taking any medications — an impressive state of health in a heavily medicated society. Curious about what contributes to her wellbeing, I asked more about her life. Wendy grew up in Barbados, and her upbringing offered some important clues.
Before I describe Wendy’s background, it’s useful to consider the broader health picture for women of color. Alice Randall, writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University, highlighted troubling trends in a recent opinion piece in The New York Times. She noted that four out of five Black women are seriously overweight and that one in four middle-aged Black women has diabetes. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show significantly higher obesity rates among Black Americans compared with whites. Randall explores cultural factors that may play a role, including attitudes toward body size and resistance to weight loss within some communities. She also emphasizes the economic and social costs of the obesity epidemic, warning that unchecked trends will burden public resources and health systems.
The billions we spend treating diabetes could be better invested in education, retirement benefits and other needs; projections suggest the total cost of America’s obesity epidemic could approach $1 trillion by 2030 if current trends continue.
At a recent Harvard lecture, biologist Daniel Lieberman even suggested that exercise should be mandated by law — an idea that sparked controversy. Many, including Randall, reacted strongly against government-mandated exercise, calling it punitive and insensitive to people who are already disadvantaged. While the urgency of the public-health crisis is clear, most of us agree that coercive measures are not the answer. Similarly, proposals like banning bake sales to fight childhood obesity raise questions about who decides what is best and whether such measures actually address root causes.
So what can be done given the high rates of chronic disease among certain communities? Returning to Wendy’s story provides a practical example. In Barbados her family grew vegetables and raised animals, and meals were based on fresh, whole foods. She described farm-fresh eggs from free-roaming chickens that foraged naturally, producing eggs richer in healthy fats. The cows they raised grazed on grass, not grain, which results in meat with a better fatty-acid profile. Fresh vegetables were eaten daily and processed, high-carbohydrate foods played little role in the diet.
This back-to-basics food environment — local, minimally processed foods and animals raised on natural diets — set the stage for lifelong healthy habits. While not everyone can return to a farm lifestyle, embracing principles like whole foods, less processing and more nutrient-dense choices can have real health benefits.
At the event another attendee was delighted to hear me praise coconut oil, a staple from her youth. June, another woman at my table, laughed about seeing kale served at an upscale restaurant for a high price — a vegetable that, in many parts of the U.S. South, was traditionally considered an inexpensive, everyday food. These conversations underscored a consistent theme: many traditional foods that sustained communities for generations are nutrient-rich and health-promoting.
Kale Salad with Warm Andouille Sausage Dressing
These conversations convinced me that reconnecting with traditional foodways may be a powerful avenue for improving health in communities hit hardest by modern chronic diseases. That belief aligns with the principles of the paleo approach to eating, which emphasizes whole, minimally processed foods and recognizes the value of traditional diets and practices.
I’d love to hear from you. Do your cultural traditions emphasize whole foods and traditional preparation methods? What do you think contributes to higher rates of obesity, diabetes and other diseases in certain ethnic groups, and how might cultural practices be part of the solution?