To support and drive the decrease in the number of Black, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, and People of Color (BIPOC) comorbidities and deaths from preventable conditions and diseases.

Let me briefly start from the beginning: I am a PK (yes, preacher's kid) born and raised in the Christian faith or as we say "the church".  As a PK from a large national church organization, I spent just about every waking minute at church (this included traveling for convocations and revivals) when not in school, summer/church camp, or at home. The beauty in this upbringing is that not only did I learn church administration very early, I was also a captive audience for every adult testimony and sermon filled with stories about one's health, quality of life, and well-being. It didn't take long to notice a pattern in these stories of "sugar" or "pressure" that concluded with "pray my strength in the Lord", a church colloquialism requesting prayer for healing.

As I heard firsthand the countless testimonies, especially from pulpit-based church leaders, and witnessed them live a lesser quality of life, the outcomes of their lifestyle-induced conditions began pulling on my heart as I watched, listened, made hospital visits, and even attended funerals over the years. One day, I remember barging my tweeny-aged self into my mom's bedroom (without knocking, yikes!) exclaiming how tired I was of hearing these testimonies!  In fact, what I remember saying after I barged in without any context (which caught my mom completely off guard) was: "Mom! God can't use you beat up and broke down!" Perplexed, puzzled, and likely all of the above, my mom replied in her calm-professional voice "uh, Ethel, what are you talking about?" I went on and on about the pain my little heart was feeling from all the testimonies I was hearing, and I was getting tired of praying for stuff we could do something about, concluding in the affirmative that "God can't use you beat up and broke down." Pausing, my mom put my story together in her mind and offered gentle correction that actually God can use whomever He wants, in whatever condition He wants, when He wants, and how He wants.  In protest, I exclaimed: "Well, He can, but you wouldn't be at your best!" My mom nodded in agreement, and in her calm voice said: "Ethel, you've got a point."  

It was this defining moment where I made up my mind that if anyone could help change the narrative and health outcomes for the people I spent the most time with, and the world, it would be me.

I believe that our current state of health and quality of life collectively is far below what it can be, and it does not have to be this way. Our national and global health and wellness data convey that many of us lead a poor quality of life, die too early, and have normalized feeling less than our best selves all too often. And at the same time, I know from the various community conversations that I have led at all levels across many arenas that most people wish they knew what they could do to reclaim their overall health and wellness and sustain it.

I believe that we can both enjoy our food-based cultural norms and traditions that we love and enjoy so much, improve our understanding of and relationships with food, and do it in a way that gives our bodies life, helps us to thrive, live our best lives, and add value to our well-being and quality of life, rather than subtract from it.

Lifestyle Changes. Change the narrative surrounding normalized "acceptable diseases" or "acceptable conditions" just because it may be all you have seen, heard, and/or know.

Example of an Existing Narrative: "Well, we all got high blood pressure in my family."

Challenge to Change the Narrative: Appreciate that perhaps many in your family eat the same things and lead similar lifestyles because the relationship with food is the same, and therefore there is a family history of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes "sugar", excessive weight gain, dementia, irritability, Alzheimer's, etc.