From cuisines and music to fitness, wellness, and much more, Hispanic and Latinx people have enriched the United States with their cultures, traditions, and practices. To pay homage to the impact and contributions Hispanic and Latinx-Americans have made to the United States and to the entire world, we celebrate Latinx Heritage Month from September 15 through October 15.
In honor of the month-long tribute, we’re highlighting some rockstar Latinas who are dominating the wellness world. And although we shouldn’t limit celebrating our Latinx friends, family, and peers to just one month, what better time to put these trailblazing Latinas in the spotlight?
Keep reading to get inspired by four Latina wellness gurus who are breaking barriers, motivating others, and changing the game in the wellness industry.
Candy Calderón
Candy Calderón, based in Miami, Florida, is a certified holistic health coach and the founder of Glow Wellness Tour. Launched in 2017, Glow Wellness Tour is a health and wellness educational platform, community, and event series focused on decolonizing wellness and making it more accessible to Latinas and women of color (WOC) from multicultural backgrounds while also amplifying the voices of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and WOC wellness experts.
Her journey into the wellness world has a humble beginning, which started when her mom received her breast cancer diagnosis. Calderón took it upon herself to learn everything to help her mom heal naturally without negating traditional medicine. After her mom’s miraculous recovery was when her health and wellness career really kicked off.
“Everybody started asking me to share my story,” says Calderón. “I soon discovered that helping others, especially Latinas and WOC, learn about prevention and how to lead healthier lives fulfilled me in a way that I had never experienced before. I then decided to enroll in nutrition school to get certified as a holistic health and wellness coach.”
Calderón now coaches women around the world with signature programs and speaks on illness prevention and healthy living while also working to bring visibility to the specific health and wellness needs of WOC and the lack of diversity in the wellness space. Her main goal through her private practice and Glow Wellness Tour is to show that healing happens faster when we feel seen and understood and when we are joined in community reclaiming our health.“As I keep doing the work, my hope is that I continue to fuel a new generation of women who can stay redefining what vibrant health means for them, and embracing their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness on their own terms,” she says.
Indhira and Violet Santana
Indhira and Violet Santana founded My Wellness Solutions in 2010—a preventative, complementary, and alternative medicine center in New York that combines quality natural supplements with an educated staff that provides services including nutritional counseling, food sensitivity testing, hormone balancing, cleansing, skincare, colonics, and many others.
Since moving to the United States from the Dominican Republic, Indhira and Violet Santana’s mom has worked in the wellness industry, which allowed them to be raised on preventative care and supplements. Then when Indhira graduated college she started working in pharmaceuticals. “It’s the other side of medicine as I like to call it, because pharma sells prescriptions while we try to work on helping clients bring down symptoms holistically,” says Indhira. “Once I realized that pharmaceuticals were not in line with how I was raised, I left corporate and My Wellness Solutions was born!”
What started as a small family business born from their personal passion of helping others, transformed into what clients call “an oasis of health in the Bronx,” and now Central Harlem. The sisters knew that although in the Latino and African American communities there’s more trust in alternative medicine than in traditional western medicine, centers that provide alternative medicine are not commonly available.
“After seeing our mom working in the field (selling supplements), we became inspired to continue in the mission and incorporate services into the business,” says Indhira. “We knew that our communities desperately needed to close a huge education gap in healthcare and that is what we do everyday. Clients come to us to help them with simple to complex health conditions in a language they understand and by practitioners who look like them and know the cultural differences.”
My Wellness Solutions is making a difference in their community by offering their clients the best ways to attain better health, provide quality service, and spread their mission of educating the community on the fact that optimal health starts from within and can be achieved naturally.
Robyn Moreno
Robyn Moreno, based in Cold Spring, New York, is an author, certified yoga teacher, trained life coach, and practicing curandera (Mexican folk healer). Her expertise ranges from 1-1 intuitive coaching, energetic cleansings, wellness webinars, and retreat leader.
Moreno set out on her wellness and spiritual journey when she left NYC and moved to a beach community in Long Island to be closer to nature, where she started her yoga teacher training. Today, Moreno is an accomplished writer highlighting the stories and issues of women, Latinas, and WOC in various publications, including having published two books, Borderline Personalities and Practically Posh. She also holds quarterly curandera workshops where she teaches Curanderismo, an ancient Mesoamerican earth-based healing tradition.
“After a transformational period of my life, I turned back to a simple and profound earth-based medicine practiced by my great-grandmother called Curanderismo, which helps you to feel balanced and whole through energetic cleansings, herbs, heart to heart conversations, connection to spirit, and much more,” she says.
Her new book, Get Rooted, based on her journey of re-discovery and reclamation of both her culture and self, will be available April 5, 2022.
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or condition. Always check with your doctor before changing your diet, altering your sleep habits, taking supplements, or starting a new fitness routine.
Kelsey Maloney
A New Jersey native, Kelsey Maloney is an Associate Editor at Fitbit currently living out her California dream in San Francisco. After receiving her Bachelor of Art's degree in Journalism, she backpacked for a year to several countries around the world, including to her favorite city – Cape Town, South Africa. She then made the leap to the West Coast to pursue her writing and editing career, formerly at Sunset Magazine. Kelsey is a travel and hot yoga enthusiast with an adoration for live music, the great outdoors, Annie’s mac and cheese, and a Hazy IPA.
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