8 Things Broma Bakery’s Founder Said About Food and Body Image That Hit Way Too Close to Home

Dessert discourse is getting weird again. Sugar is “bad,” everyone online is shrinking, and somehow eating a cookie still feels like a moral decision. Enter Broma Bakery founder Sarah Fennel, who quite literally built a career around butter, sugar, and joy—after recovering from an eating disorder rooted not in vanity, but control.

On With Whit, host Whitney Port sits down with Fennel for an unexpectedly grounding conversation that goes way deeper than baking. Whether you’re in your healing era or just trying to eat dinner without overthinking it, here are eight things Fennel said that hit different.

Recovery isn’t a neat ‘before and after’

The internet loves a clean transformation story: I struggled → I healed → I’m fine. Real life rarely works like that.

“Issues with food always kind of live in you. It’s just like a journey of dealing with it,” Fennel explains, pushing back on the idea that recovery is a finished state. Over time, the thoughts don’t magically disappear…but they do get quieter, more manageable, and a little less defining.

Think of it less like flipping a switch and more like lowering the volume. Progress isn’t perfection. And if something still pops up sometimes, that doesn’t mean recovery “failed.” It means you’re human.

Your food issues might be about control, even if you don’t see yourself as controlling

Fennel’s eating disorder started at age 16, and she says it was never about how she looked. “It was for sure because of my environment and I was reaching for control,” she explains. “I was not very interested in how I looked in a mirror…It was so much more an internal thing for me.”

Port recognizes that pattern in herself. During fertility struggles, she lost weight without fully understanding why, telling herself she was “just lazy” when she’d skip meals. Then came the realization: “But that is control, right?”

If you’ve ever told yourself you’re just not hungry when you know you are, that’s worth sitting with.

‘Healthier’ desserts can backfire

Protein brownies, sugar-free cookies, low-everything treats—the wellness world loves them. But Fennel learned something interesting early in her baking career. “I would eat two or three times as much because it wasn’t satisfying…I might as well just do an actual brownie,” she states.

Satisfaction matters. When food doesn’t emotionally or physically hit, the brain keeps searching, which can lead to overeating anyway. In other words, if the thing with monk fruit, almond flour, and math homework on the nutrition label doesn’t scratch the itch, that’s not a willpower problem. It’s a dessert-that-didn’t-deliver problem.

A cookie can be part of a balanced life

“I think that sugar has been pushed on society as being the devil,” Sarah says. Her take? “If you are eating a cookie every night like I do, that is part of a balanced diet.” 

She points out that we live in cities full of carcinogens and daily stressors that are objectively worse for us than a sweet treat, and that the best way to break the fear cycle is surprisingly simple: “Challenge yourself and try eating a cookie at the end of every day or every other day…see what happens.” 

For most people, what happens is…nothing. The world keeps spinning, your jeans still fit, and the cookie was just a cookie.

The GLP-1 era is destabilizing and women feel it

“It’s very destabilizing to see…everyone getting thinner, thinner, thinner,” Fennel says. “And then it’s like when somebody looks really good in good light, everyone’s like, ‘Oh my god, they are looking amazing!’” And yet, when someone loses weight, the internet often turns around and criticizes them. “We can’t f*cking win.”

The bigger truth here has less to do with any one drug or trend and more to do with comparison culture. Because bodies don’t exist in a vacuum. Genetics, resources, time, support—all of it shapes what you’re seeing. And when you stack that against your own real life, of course the comparison falls apart. Trying to measure yourself against someone else’s highlight reel is a losing game.

Naming the thought takes away its power

When the restrictive thoughts show up (and Fennel says they still do—”especially because I work around food and dessert”), her first move isn’t a mantra or a deep breath. It’s honesty. “I think it’s really important to speak up and to name it to give it less power,” she says. 

That goes for food thoughts, but also the broader anxiety spiral. The hyper-control, the perfectionism, the need for everything to be just right. Naming the thing out loud—to yourself, to a friend, to a therapist—is the first step to shrinking it.

‘Enough’ means staying present—not constantly chasing

“Being enough is about being grounded and being present and taking stock in the present moment,” Fennel says. “Not feeling like you have to keep projecting forwards and thinking about how you can be better or what other people are doing. Enough is really about staying present with yourself and being enough by your own standards—not by anybody else’s.” 

And then the kicker: “Making sure that your standards are fair, too.” Food isn’t the enemy. Control isn’t always obvious. Healing isn’t linear. And sometimes, eating the cookie is just…eating the cookie.

Listen to the full episode on With Whit, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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