The Office of Minority Health’s 2018 data revealed a stark reality: African American adults were 60 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to receive a diabetes diagnosis from their physicians. This disparity, fueled by racism and barriers to quality healthcare, worsens the diabetes crisis, escalating the risks of heart disease and mortality among those with diabetes.
Jessica Jones and Wendy Lopez are taking proactive steps to confront these challenges head-on.
As registered dietitians and entrepreneurs, they launched Diabetes Digital under their media brand Food Heaven—a virtual nutrition counseling service aimed at transforming diabetes and pre-diabetes management. Currently available in 23 states with plans for expansion, Diabetes Digital signifies a determined effort to reshape diabetes care.
“Diabetes Digital isn’t just a platform; it’s a movement toward personalized and empathetic diabetes management,” explained Jessica Jones, CEO, in a press statement. “Leveraging our expertise from Food Heaven, we’re thrilled to provide a service that truly caters to today’s clients.”
“It’s important that people see themselves in health and wellness so that they’re able to feel like this is attainable for them, because when wellness is constantly marketed as a white woman who is eating really exclusive food, people don’t see themselves represented in that,” said Lopez in an interview with Huffpost. “So if this is what wellness is positioned as and they feel like wellness is just not something that is for them, it’s important that we have different representations of what wellness means — for black people, for people who have different body sizes, for people who have physical limitations.”
