Welcome to the Healthy Human!

Hi, I’m Emma,

I’m so glad you’re here. After 30 years in the corporate HR and employee benefits world I felt driven to speak out and help people more directly. My passion is health and wellbeing. I’m an actuary by background (ie. a data geek!) and have worked with some of the largest companies in the world to address the escalating cost of healthcare plus the failing health of employees. You can read more about me professionally on my website EmmaTekstra.com – Re-thinking Health and Healthcare.

Above all though I am a wife, mom, daughter and friend. I love helping people turn their health around. It all started with my older son, now at a major University studying mechanical and aerospace engineering. A very sickly baby leading to a diagnosis of Aspergers and ADHD at age 5 with a poor prognosis for his life. I returned to my original love of medicine and began researching. I never stopped. With a full understanding of the many limitations and detriments of how conventional healthcare is now practiced, the power of the pharmaceutical industry and how the health of our body is almost entirely in our hands, I was driven to share my knowledge as widely as possible.

My first book was published on 4 June (2024). How to Be a Healthy Human; What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Health & Longevity is available from Skyhorse Publishing or anywhere good books are sold. You can hear a little more of my life story in that but the goal was to carefully lay out the foundation of how we got in this situation of such reliance on the professionals in the white coats and how we can take back our health, addressing all the major categories of illness and what to do about each. Heavily referenced, humorously illustrated for added understanding, and packed with resources and recommendations. I hope you check it out.

This newsletter was born to start speaking out and test some of the ideas for the book. I’ve moved it onto Substack to reach a wider audience. Some past articles you’ll find at EmmaTekstra.com/Blog. I’ll continue to share helpful commentary on health and wellbeing. I’m a foodie - passionate about good nutrition that tastes great. I love the outdoors and God’s amazing creation. I hate politics and negativity. I’ll explain the aspects of this world that are harming us but it’ll always have a positive spin to encourage you, maintaining a focus on solutions.

I have a heart for children – the littlest humans who are so reliant on us adults to guide, direct and keep them healthy, while our modern world fails them. I had planned an additional chapter of the book on kids but had too much material. So I’m working on my second book – How to Raise a Healthy Human; To Thrive in a Toxic World. I’ll be testing some ideas here and hope to get your input.

The newsletter is free but you should subscribe to get it straight to your inbox and join the community. I’ll be aiming for new content once a week.

If you’re enjoying what I write please share with your family/friends and consider supporting me for $5/month or whatever you think appropriate. Think of it as my tip jar.  Being self-employed is a lot harder than I thought!

Thank you for reading!

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