Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooklynne Palmer.
Brooklynne, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
When I saw an 11-year old in a documentary getting a gastric bypass, I knew there was a serious nutrition problem in the United States and that I wouldn’t be satisfied until I was part of the solution. This realization led me to start a plant-based (vegan) diet that very day and make it my goal to become a doctor. This may not seem like the traditional path to medicine, but when you realize that the majority of illnesses people are treated for are due to diet and lifestyle, it seems like THE obvious reason to do so. At least, it did to me, and that is why I’ll be attending medical school this summer in Dallas to earn my MD and Masters in Public Health. Although there is a natural overlap of nutrition and medicine, most doctors get little, if any, nutritional training in school. My goal is to play a role in bridging this gap and highlighting the consequences, specifically for lower socioeconomic communities, that can occur when nutrition isn’t prioritized.
I recently graduated from UT Dallas where I double majored in neuroscience and biology. During this time, I made sure to do the typical “pre-med” activities, but I never lost sight of my passions, and even gained some new ones. I’ve been dancing my whole life and made sure to keep doing so as time allowed. I also started writing for a food website, Spoon University and discovered that I had a love for writing and working with local businesses. Through this, thanks to the help of my friend Grace Nguyen, I also realized the beauty of food photography. Little did I know, this was the start of my social media journey and the beginning of experiences I never thought existed.
After graduating in spring 2018, I decided to take a gap year: one of the best choices I’ve ever made. I was able to travel, explore new topics, and most importantly, be available when my friend Courtney Garza approached me with an opportunity that would change my life. She asked me to join her new social media agency with her co-founder, Christina, called Sprinkles Creative. Through this, I have been able to meet people all over the DFW area and gain skills in creating and managing digital content. When talking with people through my social media job, I often get funny looks when I tell them what I studied in college and that I plan on being a doctor. While some may not think social media and science go together, I beg to differ. At the end of the day, the majority of people are on social media, so what better way to educate others about health and medicine? This job has helped me understand the power digital marketing can have and from these experiences, I decided to use my personal media reach (@BeetsByBrooke) to create and showcase tricks and tips to avoid illnesses through lifestyle and diet.
Has it been a smooth road?
The path to get to where I am now was anything but easy. While I recognize I still have a fair amount of privilege, a lot of my successes have come from unwavering determination. Knowing I wouldn’t be financially supported in college with no college savings from my family, I spent hours applying to over 30 different scholarships. I got two of them that would end up supporting my entire college education and part of my medical school tuition. One of these being the Terry Scholarship, to which I owe much of my personal growth and success. It’s not only a full ride and cost of living scholarship but a phenomenal organization that brings together passionate and motivated students.
In addition to my scholarships, I spent much of high school and all of college working. I was an RA during school and a waitress during breaks where I worked Christmas Eve and Christmas for the past five years. After years of hard work and sacrifices, I was able to finance my housing, car, MCAT (the scary, medical version of the GRE), expensive MCAT classes, and travels. While this wasn’t easy, it has only proven to myself that little will stop me from my goals, and for that, I am grateful.
Another hurdle along the way has been my mental health. With a cocktail of depression and a dash of anxiety, I often would get quite overwhelmed with the workload I set up for myself. This led to large bouts of unproductivity followed by extreme sleep deprivation in order to get everything done. As anyone knows who has gotten little sleep, this greatly affected my physical and mental health. Due to this, I turned to food as a source of comfort and became a poster child for emotional eating. For someone supposedly passionate about nutrition, I easily lost sight and gained a lot of unhealthy weight. I fell into a cycle of getting stressed, binge eating, then becoming depressed from said overeating. While I have a handle on this now, I think the topic of emotional eating isn’t talked about enough and is one of the topics I like to touch on in my social media.
It’s all too easy to look at your situation and allow it to determine the heights you’re willing to reach. Yes, you might have barriers many don’t have, be it finances, race, sex, education, or mental health. Allowing these to hold you back only hurts yourself in the end. I know that trying to overcome the cards we’ve been dealt vary for each person, but I believe that not accepting the limitations they imply will help you accomplish anything you want to.
Please tell us about Beets By Brooke.
Beets by Brooke, my social media account, focuses on mental and physical health for the busy individual. Whether it’s traveling, working a stressful job, or studying in medical school, it’s easy to not prioritize health and live for short term gratifications, rather than long term choices that will benefit you far into the future. Especially when we live in a society where overindulgence is the norm.
It would be ignorant to ignore that the nutrition community is often saturated with non-minorities. This fact is significant as the groups of people most affected by nutrition issues, such as food insecurities, are often Hispanic and African-American. I believe that my voice as a black woman in nutrition sets me apart, especially in the medical world, because I plan on focusing on these issues as they are personal to me. One way I’ve done this is by using my reach to highlight the black-owned vegan spots in Dallas (the photos of the mac n cheese is from Vegan Vibrations at the farmers market). While some of the food is fried (and let’s face it, anything fried isn’t good for you) these companies are making waves by showing the black-community that depending on high intakes of meat isn’t necessary. They also express to the world that eating healthy isn’t only for the wealthy. I am proud to use my social media to share these places and events to people who may otherwise not know about it.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I see the power of influencers to become even bigger. This has grown recently and companies seem to realize the value of people with big or small media presences showcasing their products. I hope people start to realize that having a large presence doesn’t imply any level of expertise. A scary part about social media is that people with no real knowledge can share their ideas with others (examples being not vaccinating kids and the keto diet). With more professionals getting on social media, I hope that their presence grows and helps to provide more science-based information to the public.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beetsbybrooke/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brookesbeets/
Image Credit:
Ann Mai (@plantcrush) Christina Bluford (@christinaisblue)
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