Wellness is always in season!
A local doctor partnered with Whole Foods to offer free nutrition classes and resources to African Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Enterprise reports.
Dr. Akua Woolbright is working to do everything she can to assist the African American community during the current pandemic. As a result of several underlying factors stemming from racism, Blacks have been impacted disproportionately by the coronavirus, causing multiple public health issues simultaneously. Woolbright has teamed up with Whole Cities Foundation, the nonprofit extension of the supermarket chain, to help educate and share resources that will help African Americans in the fight against the virus.
The “Let’s Talk Food” initiative is a free nutrition class run by Woolbright where she covers a multitude of food wellness topics including “principles of optimal nutrition, eating for healthy weight loss, managing chronic disease, decoding labels, combating food cravings, and eating on a budget.” She also helps attendees transition to a plant based diet and offers cooking demonstrations and classes.
Dr. Woolbright has been perfecting these courses for a long time, starting years ago by offering them to Whole Foods employees first, eventually becoming an official member of the team. “I saw amazing transformations occur as Whole Foods Market employees completed our company’s intensive week-long medical immersions led by doctors using only food as medicine. Year after year, participants consistently lost weight and kept it off, got healthier and drastically reduced or eliminated their medications. I started teaching nutrition and culinary education classes around the country, and in 2012 moved to Detroit as part of the Whole Foods Market community relations team tasked to help bring the first national grocery store back to the city in 2013,” Woolbright told Black Enterprise.
Now Woolbright wants to take her talents straight to the communities that need her the most, hoping to give African Americans the tools they need to fight the virus and build a healthy and sustainable relationship to food going forward.
“Through my work at Whole Cities Foundation, I offer a combined approach that emphasizes information, inspiration, and support. I provide the latest evidence-based, scientific information for disease prevention and control from both within traditional and alternative modalities. Stepping outside our comfort zone and taking our program out into the community helped us to learn from our students, establish trust and build rapport,” Woolbright said.
Thank you for all your work Dr. Woolbright! You are appreciated.
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