Personally is Glamour’s first-person series featuring deeply personal stories from women shaping culture in their own words. Below, Nara Smith—model, lifestyle creator, and the author of the cookbook Homemade—reflects on how her health journey has completely changed her relationship with food for the better.
It all started with my grandma. When I was really young, she would cook a lot. It was very simple cooking—traditional German meals, nothing fancy whatsoever. But because the ingredients were so good, it tasted really good. Or maybe it was just because my grandmother made it. Who knows? One of my first memories is of her making oatmeal, and when she died, there were a lot of meals I never made again.
When I was growing up in Germany, my dad cooked a lot. We’d go grocery shopping every Saturday morning, which was always the most fun part to me. Meanwhile, my mom approached food in a very medicinal way. She used ingredients to cure sicknesses. If we had an ear infection, she’d have us lie on hot onions. When we had a sore throat, we ate garlic and honey. When we felt nauseous, we’d be given salt and sugar water. Both of these approaches helped me look at food as a way to nourish your body—for enjoyment and also for health.
But when I started modeling, my relationship with food and my body became very complicated. The restriction of food was hard for me, and I got really in my head about it. I became a vegetarian for a few years because meat felt dangerous to me. I went vegan for a while too. Then I met my husband, Lucky. On one of our earliest dates, he said, “Just try a piece of my steak.” So I did. After that I started eating meat again. With him, I felt like I was free of all these limitations I’d put on myself. I didn’t care as much about looking a certain way anymore because I felt accepted and understood, like I didn’t have to fit a specific mold to be loved or desired or to even find happiness.
“I had to reevaluate how to nourish my body.”
