Meet Suzannah Bozzone

We recently connected with Suzannah Bozzone and have shared our conversation below.

Suzannah , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

My purpose, or why I get up in the morning, is to empower and inspire individuals, groups, and communities with Lifestyle Medicine (The evidence-based use of nutrition, movement, stressing less, loving more, sleeping well, and reducing toxins to prevent, treat, and even reverse chronic mental and physical conditions). Most importantly, I want to share this message with joy, humor, compassion, curiosity and NOT with criticism.

How did I come to find that purpose? Well, it wasn’t in medical school or in residency. Those landmarks were a necessary piece, but I found purpose in the journey, by connecting the needs I perceived in our health culture with my personal gifts and passions. Hence the name of my Lifestyle Medicine practice, True Health Journey, which I founded along with my amazing partner, health coach and nurse, Crissie Smith. What started as a medical practice for individual patients, has expanded into workplaces and community education. The power of Lifestyle Medicine is greater when done in community. I now working with employers, insurance companies, and brokers to help them create a workplace culture of vitality, recognizing that healthy, happy employees are more fulfilled, more productive, and have lower health expenses. This work fuses all of my passions- lifestyle medicine, performing, creativity, and connection with an endpoint I always wanted- healthier patients!

This journey to purpose is largely dependent on like-minded partnerships. In Chattanooga, TN, many of us are striving to reimagine a built environment (including structural, workplaces, schools, policies) that nudges healthy behaviors and in effect, reduces chronic disease and health disparity, regardless of zipcode. I’m also honored to be among the outstanding team at Love.Life Telehealth empowering patients with Lifestyle Medicine across the Nation.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My passion is working alongside companies to create wellness content that is evidence-based, and addresses the needs of their employees in an entertaining and impactful way. Every company is different, and I enjoy working with their HR or benefits team to personalize their needs and increase engagement. The Cigna Healthy Workforce designated program I created at TNAA is a great example of content evolution and expansion around mental health, movement and nutrition.

I’m always writing new content, and updating webinars with the latest in Lifestyle Medicine: https://www.mytruehealthjourney.com/employee-wellness-webinars

Here’s a fun 30 day challenge to “Connect more in ’24′” to help boost your focus while addressing our loneliness epidemic: https://www.mytruehealthjourney.com/new-events/2024/1/2/connect-more-in-24

For non-local patients interested in an individual Lifestyle Medicine consultation (I cover 7 states, but regardless of your state, every doc on this team is outstanding): https://love.life/telehealth/

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Don’t force it to look one way. If you are open to opportunities that are in line with your purpose, the journey will be so much more interesting and enjoyable, than if it had followed your initial blueprint.

2. Life is better with partners. Connect with like-minded people and organizations. For me, this was the YMCA (doing education and community programs with a beloved organization already fueling health and vitality in the community), yoga studios (I teaching Lifestyle Medicine for yoga teachers, workshops, and yoga anatomy for injury prevention) , and local plant-based restaurants (leading “food as medicine” workshops and dinner events)

3. Find JOY and GRATITUDE in your journey. Following your purpose is SO much more fulfilling than a regular paycheck with benefits. As far as we know, this is the one chance we have, so let’s make it meaningful and spread the joy of purpose-driven living!

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

I’ve had the honor of working in Spanish speaking clinics throughout my career. The Latino population has taught me so much (including the beautiful language). This year I finally piloted a food as medicine community program (“COMERx”) in Chattanooga, teaching a 4-week series in Spanish alongside an amazing Cuban chef and now MPH/RD. As I’m not a native speaker, I felt the imposter syndrome strong, but it was just the beginning towards that bucket list dream of empowering Spanish speakers with Lifestyle Medicine locally and in workplaces. I’m now working on translating (slowly but surely) my employee wellness webinars into Spanish to help empower Latino populations with la Medicina del Estilo de Vida.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Kevin Kibble
Lane Park
Small Box Entertainment

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