The autopsy results of American Idol Alum Mandisa Hundley confirmed she died of complications of Class III obesity. While millions of men and women around the globe can attribute their weight struggles to the D.N.A. inheritance of the “fat gene,” it’s time we acknowledge the other “inheritance” contributing to the high rate of obesity in the Black community: the intergenerational transfer of trauma from our slavery legacy a.k.a. “Black post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Although I didn’t inherit “the fat gene,” my journey from a 5’11” 130-pound runway model to a 301-pound morbidly obese writer was definitively caused by the inheritance of the latter. I was one of the 500,000 kids in America—the majority of whom are Black—placed in the foster care system.
During my childhood, I had no knowledge of why—or even when—I became a ward of the state of New York because no one told me, and you certainly didn’t ask questions.
My earliest memory is sitting at a desk in school (in kindergarten or first grade), nervously pulling my hair, and seeing my foster mother, Mrs. Parkay, with her blue Afro wig and rhinestone-studded cat eyeglasses, pointing her menacing finger at me through the window of the closed classroom door. I could hear some kids seated near me snickering at her frightful image.
I blocked out the beating that followed. I quickly realized Mrs. Parkay was violent, illiterate, and a heavy drinker. Her two grown children were morbidly obese and delighted in regularly stealing food from us foster kids, which was a relief since Mrs. Parkay’s cooking of pig feet and chitterlings was quite terrible.
Food, however, became my Holy Grail. At night, I would sneak down to the basement and rummage through the garbage cans in search of scraps.
By 12, I was tall and skinny and caught the eye of Mr. Richardson, one of Mrs. Parkay’s cronies who visited the house where the drinking of Southern Comfort filled the evenings. He was a caretaker for a wealthy Jewish couple with an expansive mansion in Bronxville. Mrs. Stein threw quite the brunches and dinner soirees. Donning a crisp white uniform, I began working at the Stein’s mansion on the weekends and served endless platters of schnitzel, lox, smoked sturgeon, and other delicacies to her guests.
At the end of the weekend, I got to take home leftovers and snuck them into the bedroom for our secret feasts!
At 15, I saw the “Spanish Speaking Cashiers” sign posted in the A&P supermarket window. Using the treasured Singer Sewing Machine Mr. Richardson had bought me for a previous birthday, and I whipped red hot pants and yellow halter tops for my B.F.F. Niecy and me to apply for the coveted A&P jobs.
The outfits did the trick because the store manager, Mr. Dragastino, never tested our Spanish fluency (I knew Hola! and Gracias! which was more than Niecy knew!)
Niecy and I proudly wore our red A&P aprons—pinned with ~Yo Hablo Espanol” big white buttons. We had hit the jackpot with our cushy part-time jobs and a gourmet selection of endless goodies! Mrs. Parkay also took the opportunity to come into the supermarket with her friend Mrs. Dodger and load up their shopping carts—with expensive pot roasts and canned hams—that I was required to check out for free.
My fourth and last foster home was at Mrs. Rhodes in the Soundview section of the Bronx. I had skipped the eighth grade via the S.P. program and graduated from high school at 17. I used the last year in foster care to work full-time and save money for my grand escape at 18.
During that year, I also attended Ophelia DeVour Modeling School, created gowns for the school’s fashion show finale, and took night classes at F.I.T. Taped on my bedroom walls were sleek, sophisticated images of supermodels Lauren Hutton, Karen Graham, and Beverly Johnson torn from the pages of Vogue magazine.
Back in the late 1970s, the beauty climate was scary: “White was right, Blonde was better, and the infamous mantra: You could never be too thin’ was echoed around the globe.” I fell hard for this manufactured fibbery.
Although I was 5’11” tall and weighed 130 pounds, I made conscious efforts to get my weight down to 125 pounds because “thinner was better.’’
When I escaped foster care, I moved to Manhattan, attended F.I.T. by day, and was employed as a barmaid in black leotards at the Tin Pan Alley seedy bar in Times Square by night. I sent away my birth certificate and found out I was born in Brooklyn, and my mother’s name was Ruth Gregory, and “father unknown.” (It would be years later, when I became a writer for Essence magazine, that I would begin to unravel my family history.)
From the F.I.T. bulletin, I answered an ad for a roommate. I moved in with Susan Betz, a JAP (Jewish American Princess) from Great Neck, Long Island, who introduced me to “black beauties”: deadly amphetamines that were perfect for dieting and studying for exams. Frail and hyper from overdosing on pills, I finally landed in therapy. My wonderful therapist, Anath Garber, prodded me to pursue modeling.
After taking photos for my portfolio, I visited the Ford Model Agency. The white agent calmly told me: “You are beautiful, but we can’t use Black girls. You should go to Europe.’’
As a result, I became haunted by dreams of Paris. Anath prodded me to go. I had never been on a plane before, but off I went. Like New York, Paris is a cold, metropolitan city, but I immediately got tied into an American circle of models, photographers, and makeup artists. American models Dovanna, Lisa Rubenstein, and photographer Josef Astor were part of my inner circle.
Crossing a continent, however, did not erase the color factor. I remember going on go-sees for showroom and fashion show jobs and being told: “No more Black Girls today!” all the Black models in the room would get up to leave the go-see like a herd of cattle. One of the Black American models, Celeste, with whom I did a showroom job, was based in Firenze, Italy, and she prodded me to go there and sign up with Chic Models. I had never dreamed about Italy, but the minute I landed on Italian terrain, I was inspired by La Dolce Vita. My days and nights were filled with vino bianco, Spinaci con limone, and go-sees.
But even in Italy, modeling is fiercely competitive, and the terrain is filled with primarily American girls who are not about to help you except for one—Coco Mitchell. She had been working there for a minute and knew the treacherous terrain. Coco was my inspiration.
All the American models lived in the local pensiones (similar to what we call hostels), and sometimes, three or four of us were cramped in the same room.
I was living in a pensione with model Andrea from Dallas and makeup artist Jose from New York when La Dolce Vita turned bitter. Andrea turned green and was bedridden from our nightly vino bianco and spinaci con limone dinners. An Italian doctor ordered her to eat pasta and remain on bed rest.
I, on the other hand, was mentally unraveling from the excessive drinking to mask my childhood trauma.
The night before a photo shoot, I got into a fight and was socked in the face. Photographer Leonardo Maniscalchi was not happy about my black eye. Still, he turned my face to a profile for the modeling job (for a leather jacket ad to appear in Italian Vogue magazine). I didn’t want to leave Italy and come back to the harsh reality of the race struggles in America, but instinctively, I knew I had to get back to New York to resume seeing my therapist, Anath.
I cried my eyes out on the plane, but I came back in the nick of time to resume the therapy that would save my life. Little did I know I was in for a hell of a ride, though—like switching seats on the Titanic—and that I would painstakingly reinvent myself as a writer but gain 171 pounds in the process before finally hitting rock bottom decades later that would finally catapult me onto a solid road to recovery.
Part 1 of a two-part story by Deborah Gregory. (part 2 continues tomorrow)
Deborah Gregory is the New York Times bestselling author of THE CHEETAH GIRLS and the CATWALK trilogy.
