“Nothing tastes as good as weight loss feels”, says Dr. Ro, is an award-winning health journalist and television personality known for her easy-to-apply diet, fitness and health tips for people of all ages. A leading nutrition coach for more than 2 decades, she was named one of More magazine’s top five nutritionists in the country. Dr. Ro holds a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from Howard University and is the author of Dr. Ro’s Ten Secrets to Livin’ Healthy and Loose Your Final 15.
We had the pleasure of having Dr. Ro speak at the Black Health Matters Summit in Charleston, SC on September 1st. She brought her expertise and words of encouragement to the event. She spoke about the high-fat foods she ate in her upbringing with her family and how that food is part of her journey.
Dr. Ro began by sharing that her family ate a traditional Southern diet. They feasted regularly on deep-fried chicken, pork chops smothered in rich gravy, country ham, fried salt fish, hoecake, chitins’ and a cornucopia of other dishes laden with fat, salt and sugar. These foods brought her family together and were passed down from generation to generation. It represented part of her family’s culture and heritage.
As she writes in her book Lose the Last 15 Pounds, “In college, I learned the many ways in which food influences our health. I realized that my mother’s diet and weight almost certainly contributed to her stomach cancer and her early death. I discovered why my uncles lost limbs to diabetes and peripheral vascular disease. And, with a very heavy heart, I came to understand how much suffering and death in my family and my community could have been postponed or prevented if someone had taught the people I loved how to eat a healthier diet.”
Knowing that the foods she ate growing up weren’t the healthiest, she used that part of her life to show the world that we all start somewhere. Not everyone grew up knowing the right foods to eat or even having the awareness of the severe effects these foods have on their health. Dr. Ro has made it her mission to educate the community on health while informing them that this is a journey, not a race.
See more at see www.blackhealthmatters/
