Why Fit And Well

How Fit and Well Got Started

I was 44, and concerned that I seemed to be losing muscle tissue. My Mum has severe osteoporosis and I wanted to guard against having it too. So I made an appointment with an endocrinologist, who, aside from charging me a fortune, prescribed Oroxine, which I dutifully started taking.

Two nights later I was at a seminar led by women’s health advocate, Sherrill Sellman. Sherrill is an Australian who now lives in the US and wrote the book Hormone Heresy.

A woman from the audience asked a question, and mentioned that she had been taking Oroxine for 12 years. Sherrill said Oroxine could contribute to osteoporosis over time. My jaw almost bounced off the floor. Here I was, keen to prevent osteoporosis, and I was taking something that could promote it? I’m not sure if I even knew that Oroxine was thyroid hormone, or Thyroxine, until that night.

Since then, research has shown that taking thyroid hormone probably doesn’t encourage osteoporosis, but that Friday night changed my life. I cancelled my plans for the weekend to attend a two-day seminar with Sherrill. By the Sunday night I knew that I wanted to devote my working life to ferreting out the kind of health information that we all need to know but very often don’t. I was horrified by how ignorant I was about thyroid health and my hormones in general, despite having a background in preventive health and being a prolific reader.

The more I hunted, the more I learned, and the more passionate I got about passing this information on to other women. I started Fit and Well in 2004 but was offered a scholarship to do a PhD shortly after that. It was a chance to delve into a world of research I’d previously not had access to, so between 2005 and 2008 I completed my doctorate on the dietary and exercise behaviour of midlife women. That gave me a chance to talk to lots of women about their health.

What I learned in the process was that science can answer some questions well but not others. It can be a blessing when it provides new solutions and a curse when we get it wrong. It’s also intensely political. I’ve concluded that we need to balance the best of what the academic and medical worlds have to offer with a good dose of common sense, respect for Mother Nature, and womanly intuition. At Fit and Well I’m aiming to do that.