African-American Women: Take Note

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By Kristi Thomas, R.D.
Photos by Rolf Bruderer/Masterfile, Marty Baldwin, Randi Sidman-Moore/Masterfile, and courtesy of Everything Ro Lifestyle Boutique

Seventy-eight percent of African-American women are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nutritionist Rovenia "Dr. Ro" Brock hopes to change that by sharing her life-saving secrets.

Fit, lean, and healthy at age 50, nutrition guru Rovenia “Dr. Ro” Brock admits she didn’t always practice the eating and exercise plan she now preaches. “About seven years ago I was three dress sizes larger than I am now,” she says. “I had reasons enough to lose weight, but I didn’t.”
           
Dr. Ro, a journalist, nutrition educator, and fitness coach, has hosted Heart and Soul, a health and fitness show on Black Entertainment Television. She is also the author of Dr. Ro’s Ten Secrets to Livin’ Healthy (Bantam, 2004). As her career took off, she realized she had to lose weight to save her life. Unless she began living a healthy lifestyle, she knew she might face the same medical problems suffered by family members, including her mother, who died of stomach cancer at age 53, when Dr. Ro was only 9 years old. Hypertension and vascular disease also run in her family.
           
She realized that the foods commonly eaten by her African-American family, including fried salt fish, scrapple, fried potatoes and onions, and pig’s feet, had contributed to her mother’s poor health and stomach cancer. “My mom’s Southern roots dictated her diet, which was high in fat,” Dr. Ro says. “It was atrocious, but it was the diet I grew up with.”