Season 1 · Episode 9
In this episode of Becoming Recovered: Body and Soul, Carolyn Costin sits down with recovered coach, educator, and advocate Giva Wilkerson to discuss the often-overlooked experience of eating disorders among Black women.
Giva shares her personal journey through grief, perfectionism, restriction, bingeing, and the realization that her struggles with food and body image were serious and deserving of support. Together, she and Carolyn explore how harmful stereotypes about what someone with an eating disorder “looks like” can prevent people—especially Black women and those in larger bodies—from being recognized, diagnosed, and treated.
They also discuss why effective treatment requires looking beyond weight and appearance, truly listening to patients, and creating spaces where people feel believed, understood, and safe enough to be honest about what they are experiencing.
Throughout the conversation, Giva reflects on being recovered as more than changing eating behaviors. It is a gradual process of rebuilding identity, connection, joy, and freedom. She shares how therapy, community, coaching, creativity, movement, and self-compassion have supported that process.
Carolyn and Giva also talk about raising children with a healthier, more balanced relationship with food, their bodies, and their self-worth—and why becoming recovered is ultimately about building a full life, rather than spending that life trying to control or “fix” the body.
Giva Ann Wilkerson is a Philadelphia native, writer, speaker, educator, advocate, yoga teacher, and eating disorder recovery coach of Jamaican and Black American descent. She holds graduate degrees in African American & African Diaspora Studies and Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University-Bloomington. For more than 15 years, Giva has focused her work on self-discovery, personal development, healing, education, and advocacy.
Her career began working with youth in college and career access through organizations including Upward Bound, GEAR UP, and the School District of Philadelphia. In 2012, she founded The Learning Curve Woman, LLC, originally focused on supporting women’s personal and professional development. She later transitioned into adult education and workforce training, working with organizations such as the Philadelphia Airport and Urban League of Philadelphia. Throughout her career, she has developed more than 50 personal development programs and workshops and has appeared in Refinery29, Good Morning America, and other media.
Giva became a certified yoga teacher in 2018 after discovering yoga as a powerful tool for clarity, healing, and self-acceptance. She is also certified in restorative and trauma-informed yoga and advocates for “empowerment” over “improvement.”
Her work in eating disorder recovery began with Project HEAL in 2018 and later continued with ANAD, where she helped grow peer-support programming. Drawing from her own experience with an eating disorder during her teens and early adulthood, Giva has trained more than 250 peer mentors, support group leaders, and helpline operators while helping manage a national volunteer network serving more than 2,000 people.
In 2022, she completed Eating Disorder Coach training through the Carolyn Costin Institute. Today, Giva maintains a private coaching practice and serves as Head of Community Care for Arise, where she works to expand access to inclusive, person-centered eating disorder and mental health care.
Carolyn Costin is a world-renowned eating disorder clinician, author, and speaker. Recovered from anorexia, she pioneered the belief that full recovery is possible. Founder of Monte Nido, she transformed treatment with a holistic, home-based model. She later founded the Carolyn Costin Institute, training coaches and clinicians worldwide. She has authored six books, including 8 Keys to Recovery From an Eating Disorder.
Receive 20% off the 8 Keys to Recovering from an Eating Disorder book: wwnorton.com/promo/costin
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