The Dundalk DOCTOR breaking taboos surrounding WOMEN’S HEALTH
Dr Hazel Wallace is on a mission to empower and help women understand their health better
DR. Hazel Wallace is better known as The Food Medic - her Instagram account has over 600,000 followers who watch and learn from her videos about her daily life. The Dundalk-born medic discusses healthcare, menstruation information, fertility worries, including egg freezing, and disordered relationships with food, all through a female lens, making it a very personal and informative journey.
Hazel is also a best-selling author of The Food Medic (2017), The Food Medic For Life (2018), and most recently ‘The Female Factor: Making Women’s Health Count and What It Means for You (2022). She also runs a successful podcast under the Food Medic banner, which is currently in its ninth season.
So how did the juggernaut that is The Food Medic grow into a leading voice in health and nutrition, helping so many globally?
It began when Hazel was a child in Dundalk. Her father died suddenly from a stroke when she was just 14 years old. As she struggled with the grief, when she visited her GP, they introduced her to a nutritionist who helped steer her towards a more healthy relationship with food, and her interest in nutrition began.
THAT was when I realised food had the power to feed the body and mind,’ she says. ‘By working with a dietitian, I concentrated on eating the food I enjoyed. I started putting on weight and felt like I was coming alive again. I loved spending time cooking with my mom and I learned if you feed your body well, you’ll feed your mind. I could see that food could help me think better and essentially get me out of the depression and grief I was feeling at the time.’
It was also the tragedy of her father’s passing that prompted her to become a doctor.
‘I couldn’t believe someone could die so suddenly and I wanted to learn everything I could about medicine to try to protect the other people I love,’ she says.
Hazel went on to university in Wales to study medicine, which brought on another challenge: trying to find good, nutritious food to maintain all the progress she had made.
She found herself putting on weight, studying late hours and snacking on junk food, but ironically, it is possibly this fact about Dr Hazel - who looks a postergirl for health and fitness - so relatable: she has been both underweight and overweight which makes her the ideal person to offer advice to people experiencing an unhealthy relationship with food.
She started The Food Medic blog in 2012 as a medical student with a passion for nutrition and health promotion.
‘I created The Food Medic to help educate and inspire myself to become a healthier, and stronger person,’ she says. ‘During my training at medical school I noticed a gap in the curriculum for nutrition and other areas of lifestyle medicine. I soon realised that there was a lot more value in what I was doing than simply for myself, and if I could share my message and extend it to my patients, and those around me, I could help improve the health of many people, both inside and outside of the hospital.
‘So it started as a passion project and something I was doing for myself. I wasn’t the healthiest student and I wanted to change that, and lead by example for my future patients. There was no intention for it to grow to the size it has but I’m grateful that this is now what I do day in day out.’
Hazel has become a voice for advocating new research and understanding into basic women’s health like understanding the menstrual cycle and has set up a unique programme called Align. She aims to help women understand their bodies more.
‘I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that we use the words ‘period’ and ‘menstrual cycle’ synonymously or interchangeably but they are distinct - the ‘period’ or menstruation is just the first few days (5-7) of a typical 28 day menstrual cycle,’ Hazel says.
‘However we only ever hear or learn about the bleeding phase, when so many other changes occur across a monthly cycle and this ebb and flow of hormones affect how we feel, our mood, our energy, our metabolism, our gut - even how we sleep!
‘I wish more girls and women were provided education on this because it’s a lot more empowering when you know what to expect and what not to accept (e.g. painful heavy periods, dramatic mood changes premenstrually etc),’ she concurs.
Hazel recently got engaged in Rome to her fiance David Birtwistle, a performance coach with a career in nutrition too.
‘David leads a team of coaches for his own app Endeavour and we’ve just started a partnership where his team will now provide coaching to all our food medic members so they get access to a progressive, strength training programme - so that’s exciting. We help each other in other ways but it’s also nice having our own projects and dreams - it makes dinner time conversations much more interesting.’
Hazel is approachable and on her Instagram feed it feels like no subject is off limits. Throughout 2023 she went public with her egg freezing journey, making weekly videos about the process.
‘ I debated for a long time whether to share my journey, and documented it a month before telling anyone because I wanted to experience it first hand as a patient and then make a decision as to whether my journey would be helpful to others and it was,’ she says. ‘ The experience was full of ups and downs and I don’t think we fully prepare people for that, nor do we have open and honest conversations about fertility very often and I don’t think people feel informed about their options.
‘So I wanted to use my experience to help other women/couples thinking about their options or planning to freeze their eggs or embryos. My partner was super supportive but ultimately it was my decision, as it’s my body and my eggs. I spoke to him about it and he was fully on board but reminded me all the time that I
didn’t have to go through this and we could look at other options but, I’m not ready for children although I would love them one day and I think this gives us some time to get into a better place financially and emotionally before having children.
‘David never asked for privacy and he helped me document the process because he knew it was important for me. I think that experience really bonded us and during my treatment, that was when he asked my mother for my hand in marriage,’ she reveals.
As part of her Food Medic membership and programmes that she offers on her website, she aims to give people the tools to make healthy food.
‘Our recipes are simply this quick, healthy, and delicious (and don’t cost the world to make),’ she says. ‘We don’t have a focus on restriction or calorie counts but focus more on what we can add in, like more protein, more fibre, more plants. Each month we have a
theme in our membership so our recipes, articles and content are centred around that.’
As her most recent book The Female Factor became a bestseller, it’s clear that women are hungry for information.
‘I think it was hugely ignored for a long time and even now many topics related to female health remain ‘taboo’. Even using words like ‘period’ or the ‘menopause’ can be censored online and on social media which just blows my mind. I hope that my work helps to break down some of those barriers.’
So if she could provide a short piece of advice on how to eat more healthily what would it be?
‘Stop focusing on what to cut out and focus on what you can add in more veggies, more wholegrains and high fibre food, more protein at meal times and more plant-based foods,’ Hazel says.
‘When we don’t eat for a few hours, we get ‘h-angry,’ and that’s because low blood sugar causes irritability. I’d recommend having regular meals, but don’t depend on foods that will feel good in the short term, like sugary and high-fat foods, because they won’t power you through the day. Try to get as much nutrient-dense food as possible. Foods high in Omega 3 and high in Vitamin B12 (meat, fish, and eggs) are good for your brain and nerve health.
‘If you’re taking in loads of stimulants—caffeine, sugar, or alcohol— they will have a negative effect on your brain function because they cause surges and dips in energy. A lot of people think that having a glass of wine will help them sleep better, but it actually reduces the sleep quality, so you wake up less refreshed.’
See thefoodmedic.co.uk for details of books and courses.
■ The Female Factor: Making women’s health count - and what it means for you Dr Hazel Wallace (The Food Medic), €27.50, Yellow Kite