February is Black Historical past Month, a time to rejoice and honor the achievements and contributions that Black People have made to the US and to your entire world. Right here at Fitbit, we all know how necessary it’s to study 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. 

Maintain 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 Nutrition is a registered dietitian nutritionist who’s a nationally acknowledged diet skilled. In her apply, she supplies medical diet remedy for the administration of and danger discount of non-communicable ailments. It provides 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 diet training. 

Maya’s RD journey began in neighborhood diet as a diet supervisor of a DOHMH meals and diet service program housed inside a community-based group. The shoppers and sufferers had 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 scientific diet data in a community-based setting,” says Feller. “I’ve all the time been concerned with working with and supporting improved well being outcomes in marginalized communities.”

She later transitioned into a personal apply, which is centered across the administration and danger discount of non-communicable circumstances and serves sufferers from numerous backgrounds. She works to offer and contribute credible info with out scare ways from a patient-centered anti bias lens to the diet 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 must be for everybody, not reserved for a choose few. My impression on the diet 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 tens of millions of individuals via common talking engagements, writing in native and nationwide publications, through her social media account on Instagram, @mayafellerRD, as a nationwide diet skilled on Good Morning America, GMA3: What You Must Know, and extra. She can also be the writer of The Southern Comfort Food Diabetes Cookbook: Over 100 Recipes for a Healthy Life.

Aja Gyimah, MHSc, Registered Dietitian

Aja Gyimah is a Toronto-based Registered Dietitian who began her personal apply, Compete Diet, after ending her undergrad in 2018. She provides one-on-one diet counseling and group periods for sports activities groups, company places of work, and non-profit organizations. “I’ve all the time targeted my apply on train diet, however the company and non-profit companies got here from seeing that there was a necessity for individuals all over the place to undertake simple wholesome consuming habits,” she says.

As well as, Aja can also be a diet author, influencer, and guide for trusted manufacturers, publications, and organizations. Her purpose is to assist individuals perceive that they don’t should throw away all the pieces they love to satisfy their well being or athletic objectives, and by constructing a powerful basis of wholesome habits, there’s all the time room on your consolation meals.

She can also be a founding member of the Canadian Black RD Affiliation, the place she advocates for variety and inclusion inside the dietetic occupation. “I hope to impression the business by displaying people who wholesome consuming could be simple and never restrictive,” says Gyimah. “A number of my shoppers come to me as a result of they’ve already tried all the pieces else and are uninterested in the hard-to-follow diets. I’m thrilled to be the individual they arrive to once they want shame-free, inclusive counseling, and an accountability associate.”

Valerie Agyeman, RD

Valerie Agyeman is a Ladies’s Well being Dietitian, Diet Media Skilled, Podcast Host, Creator of BLOOM, and Founding father of Flourish Heights. She bought began within the business when she was on her personal well being journey the place she struggled together with her personal physique picture. “I tapped into the world of diet as a result of I realized how highly effective meals was when it got here to the operate of my physique, the way it made me look and feel,” she says. “I wished to be a voice in my neighborhood sooner or later, empowering girls of their well being, serving to them dwell a lifetime of abundance, thriving, and flourishing to their highest potential.”

By means of Flourish Heights, a girls’s well being diet apply and digital platform, she supplies diet teaching and counseling. She helps girls nourish nicely 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 impression,” she says.

If she’s not teaching shoppers, she’s creating areas for ladies to return collectively to study, develop, and be empowered in well being. Nonetheless, the extra she does this work, the extra she realizes how this info isn’t accessible to all. “Data is energy and I really like bringing all of the taboo subjects to the desk—it’s actually saving lives. I hope every girl that is available in contact with me via The Flourish Heights Podcast, a weblog or social submit, or at considered 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 decisions,” she says.

Marisa Moore, MBA, RDN, LD

Marisa Moore is an Atlanta-based registered dietitian nutritionist who started her profession in diet after her faculty advisor at Georgia Tech prompt she take into account switching from a chemical engineering main to a diet science diploma on account of her curiosity and love for wholesome consuming. She finally bought her BS in Diet Science and later grew to become a credentialed RD. 

“I labored first in a hospital doing outpatient training and 1-1 consults, then spent a while in recipe improvement and advertising 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 bundle 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 info, suggestions, and simple recipes with the lots. Her purpose is to assist girls discover their private path to well being and well-being and forestall power illness with simple, scrumptious meals. “I present up with a balanced strategy that’s inclusive. I really like when my consumer is pleasantly shocked to seek out that she doesn’t have to surrender her favourite meals and that guilt or disgrace could be checked on the door or left on social media,” says Moore.

Moreover, she works recurrently with the media and others as on-camera expertise, doing culinary demos and cook-a-longs for company shoppers, and creating content material to be used in well being and meals media.

Whitney Miner

Whitey Miner is a Licensed Holistic Nutritionist, Licensed Yoga Instructor, Wellness Advocate, and Founding father of Eat Plants & Prosper. She bought began within the business when she reworked her personal well being simply by consuming extra vegetation, meditating, doing yoga, and exercising. “It grew to become clear that my ardour and objective was to assist as many individuals as potential 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 individuals obtain holistic wellness in thoughts, physique, and spirit. “My hope is that my viewers learns the transformational advantages of plant based mostly diet and the significance of caring for each their inside and outer being,” she says.

Miner additionally hopes to lift consciousness and produce illustration to the business. “One of many issues I seen when moving into the business was that there have been not lots of people of colour within the wellness house (significantly in veganism and yoga). Illustration issues! One of many constructive elements that I hope to carry to the business is for individuals 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 life-style) and be impressed to do the identical,” she says.