My Story
I wasn’t always a healthy eater.
In fact, as a teenager I found myself overweight, depressed and with little idea on how to lead a healthy life.
It all started when…
My relationship with food developed long ago and like most, I was greatly influenced by my mum. I was the kid that went to school with carrot sticks and a tuna salad while eyeing off my friends little packets of Smith potato chips and chocolate bars. My primary school was relatively progressive when it came to exercise and nutrition for their students. We had frozen oranges and grapes for treats in the tuck shop, chickens and compost and an early morning runners club where the majority of the school joined in. I was an active, fit, healthy kid…that was until I went to high school.
The school canteen was amazing for a child who had been ‘deprived’ of all things sweet, heavily processed and packaged in colourful, well branded wrapping. Hot pies, sausage rolls, doughnuts, chocolates, chips, lollies, fizzy drinks…the list goes on. My level of exercise dropped off and my consumption of food greatly increased. Truth be told, I piled on the weight quickly and it didn’t stop until I graduated.
It wasn’t just the weight that was a concern though, I become heavily addicted to sugar.
Throughout my early twenties, I had a love hate relationship with food and exercise. Although deep down I knew perseverance, discipline and hard work was the only way to get back to a healthy lifestyle, I secretly hoped there was a magical pill or an overnight solution where I could click my fingers and I would have glowing skin, an appetite for all things green and the ‘perfect’ figure.
What was missing in my life was education. I didn’t know how to be healthy, what to feed my body for it to perform at its best or how to apply a holistic approach to living. I began researching and what first become a hobby has now developed into a lifestyle and a career as I study a Health Science degree majoring in Nutrition & Dietetic Medicine.
As a mother, I think it’s really hard work to bring up children in today’s world when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. Food manufacturers make every effort to target kids with their branding and marketing campaigns, making it increasingly difficult to shelter your child from processed, sugary, salty, chemical laden food. Time is always an issue as we get busier and busier, and the cost of organic products makes people feel it’s only those on a combined six figure salary who can afford to buy organic produce.
If parents, caregivers and children are continually educated on all things nutrition and helped with ways to make healthy living easy, more affordable and enjoyable, surely this is a positive step in their future. Today, we see a massive rise in obesity, cases of ADHD, chronic diseases and allergies and while scientists are working hard in their labs to find a pharmaceutical solution, I think it is more logical to start looking at the very thing that it making us sick - what we put into our bodies.
This is why I studied for 7 long years to become a qualified nutritionist and now practice as a holistic nutritionist in Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula region.
My mission is simple:
I want to bring clarity to the overwhelming amount of nutrition information that is broadcasted out there.
I want to help equip parents and caregivers with the tools they need to support the health and wellbeing of their children.
I want to educate children on the importance of nutrition and inspire them to lead a healthy lifestyle so that they don’t end up in the same position I was as a teenager.