February is Black Historical past Month, a time to rejoice and honor the achievements and contributions that Black Individuals have made to the US and to the whole world. Right here at Fitbit, we all know how essential it’s to be taught from and commemorate Black voices, which is why we’re highlighting some trailblazing Black nutritionists who’re making a distinction and championing the meals world.
Preserve studying to get impressed by 5 Black feminine nutritionists who’re paving the way in which, motivating their communities, and galvanizing wholesome consuming for all.
Maya Feller, MS, RD, CDN
Maya Feller of Brooklyn-based Maya Feller Vitamin is a registered dietitian nutritionist who’s a nationally acknowledged vitamin skilled. In her follow, she supplies medical vitamin remedy for the administration of and threat discount of non-communicable illnesses. It gives 12-week packages designed to assist sufferers decrease their blood stress, blood sugars, and levels of cholesterol. Along with the packages, they provide particular person counseling and group vitamin schooling.
Maya’s RD journey began in neighborhood vitamin as a vitamin supervisor of a DOHMH meals and vitamin service program housed inside a community-based group. The purchasers and sufferers have been unhoused or unstably housed and residing with HIV/AIDS and HepC. “I used to be drawn to the job as a result of it was a possibility to make use of my medical vitamin data in a community-based setting,” says Feller. “I’ve at all times been taken with working with and supporting improved well being outcomes in marginalized communities.”
She later transitioned into a personal follow, which is centered across the administration and threat discount of non-communicable situations and serves sufferers from various backgrounds. She works to offer and contribute credible data with out scare ways from a patient-centered anti bias lens to the vitamin house. “Misinformation is rampant coming from unqualified voices making excessive and unrealistic suggestions,” says Feller. “Wellness in addition to the variables which are wanted to specific well being needs to be for everybody, not reserved for a choose few. My affect on the vitamin and wellness house is to be one of many many voices working to make wellness extra inclusive and equitable.”
Maya shares her approachable, actual food-based options to hundreds of thousands of individuals by common talking engagements, writing in native and nationwide publications, through her social media account on Instagram, @mayafellerRD, as a nationwide vitamin skilled on Good Morning America, GMA3: What You Have to Know, and extra. She can be the creator of The Southern Consolation Meals Diabetes Cookbook: Over 100 Recipes for a Wholesome Life.
Aja Gyimah, MHSc, Registered Dietitian
Aja Gyimah is a Toronto-based Registered Dietitian who began her non-public follow, Compete Vitamin, after ending her undergrad in 2018. She gives one-on-one vitamin counseling and group periods for sports activities groups, company places of work, and non-profit organizations. “I’ve at all times targeted my follow on train vitamin, however the company and non-profit companies got here from seeing that there was a necessity for folks all over the place to undertake simple wholesome consuming habits,” she says.
As well as, Aja can be a vitamin author, influencer, and guide for trusted manufacturers, publications, and organizations. Her purpose is to assist folks perceive that they don’t must throw away every thing they love to satisfy their well being or athletic objectives, and by constructing a robust basis of wholesome habits, there’s at all times room to your consolation meals.
She can be a founding member of the Canadian Black RD Affiliation, the place she advocates for variety and inclusion throughout the dietetic career. “I hope to affect the trade by displaying people who wholesome consuming might be simple and never restrictive,” says Gyimah. “A number of my purchasers come to me as a result of they’ve already tried every thing else and are uninterested in the hard-to-follow diets. I’m thrilled to be the particular person they arrive to once they want shame-free, inclusive counseling, and an accountability accomplice.”
Valerie Agyeman, RD
Valerie Agyeman is a Ladies’s Well being Dietitian, Vitamin Media Knowledgeable, Podcast Host, Creator of BLOOM, and Founding father of Flourish Heights. She acquired began within the trade when she was on her personal well being journey the place she struggled along with her personal physique picture. “I tapped into the world of vitamin as a result of I realized how highly effective meals was when it got here to the perform of my physique, the way it made me appear and feel,” she says. “I needed to be a voice in my neighborhood someday, empowering girls of their well being, serving to them stay a lifetime of abundance, thriving, and flourishing to their highest potential.”
By means of Flourish Heights, a girls’s well being vitamin follow and digital platform, she supplies vitamin teaching and counseling. She helps girls nourish effectively with PCOS, fibroids, excessive ldl cholesterol, and pre-diabetes. “I started specializing in girls’s well being three years in the past primarily as a result of these are widespread well being points I see in my neighborhood, and I knew this was an space that I may take advantage of affect,” she says.
If she’s not teaching purchasers, she’s creating areas for girls to return collectively to be taught, develop, and be empowered in well being. Nonetheless, the extra she does this work, the extra she realizes how this data isn’t accessible to all. “Data is energy and I really like bringing all of the taboo matters to the desk—it’s actually saving lives. I hope every girl that is available in contact with me by The Flourish Heights Podcast, a weblog or social publish, or at certainly one of my girls’s well being occasions can be impressed to nourish a greater relationship with meals and construct extra confidence of their meals selections,” she says.
Marisa Moore, MBA, RDN, LD
Marisa Moore is an Atlanta-based registered dietitian nutritionist who started her profession in vitamin after her faculty advisor at Georgia Tech urged she think about switching from a chemical engineering main to a vitamin science diploma as a result of her curiosity and love for wholesome consuming. She ultimately acquired her BS in Vitamin Science and later turned a credentialed RD.
“I labored first in a hospital doing outpatient schooling and 1-1 consults, then spent a while in recipe improvement and advertising and marketing for a nationwide restaurant chain earlier than contracting for a number of years on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) as the only dietitian of their office wellness program,” explains Moore. “I’ve been capable of package deal these years of expertise into my present dream job as a media and culinary dietitian.”
She loves bringing all of that have collectively as a media and culinary dietitian the place she will get to share science-based data, ideas, and simple recipes with the lots. Her purpose is to assist girls discover their private path to well being and well-being and forestall continual illness with simple, scrumptious meals. “I present up with a balanced strategy that’s inclusive. I really like when my consumer is pleasantly stunned to seek out that she doesn’t have to surrender her favourite meals and that guilt or disgrace might be checked on the door or left on social media,” says Moore.
Moreover, she works commonly with the media and others as on-camera expertise, doing culinary demos and cook-a-longs for company purchasers, and creating content material to be used in well being and meals media.
Whitney Miner
Whitey Miner is a Licensed Holistic Nutritionist, Licensed Yoga Trainer, Wellness Advocate, and Founding father of Eat Crops & Prosper. She acquired began within the trade when she remodeled her personal well being simply by consuming extra crops, meditating, doing yoga, and exercising. “It turned clear that my ardour and goal was to assist as many individuals as attainable attain optimum well being,” she says.
By means of Eat Crops & Prosper, she supplies wellness teaching, workshops, cooking demos, grocery retailer excursions, and personal yoga periods. All of her companies are impressed by serving to folks obtain holistic wellness in thoughts, physique, and spirit. “My hope is that my viewers learns the transformational advantages of plant primarily based vitamin and the significance of taking good care of each their inside and outer being,” she says.
Miner additionally hopes to boost consciousness and convey illustration to the trade. “One of many issues I seen when entering into the trade was that there have been not lots of people of shade within the wellness house (notably in veganism and yoga). Illustration issues! One of many optimistic features that I hope to convey to the trade is for folks to see somebody that appears like them (an African American girl and mother in her early 40’s that was capable of transition to a a lot more healthy way of life) and be impressed to do the identical,” she says.
This data is for academic functions solely and isn’t meant as an alternative to medical prognosis or remedy. You shouldn’t use this data to diagnose or deal with a well being downside or situation. All the time verify along with your physician earlier than altering your food plan, altering your sleep habits, taking dietary supplements, or beginning a brand new health routine.
Kelsey Maloney
A New Jersey native, Kelsey Maloney is an Affiliate Editor at Fitbit presently residing out her California dream in San Francisco. After receiving her Bachelor of Artwork’s diploma in Journalism, she backpacked for a yr to a number of nations world wide, together with to her favourite metropolis – Cape City, South Africa. She then made the leap to the West Coast to pursue her writing and modifying profession, previously at Sundown Journal. Kelsey is a journey and scorching yoga fanatic with an adoration for stay music, the good open air, Annie’s macaroni and cheese and an excellent IPA.
