Our Relationship with Food, Ourselves and the World

Join Kristin and Carolyn as they discuss everything from social unrest, racism, eating disorders, and her incredible podcast that just joined Mental Health News Radio Network. <br /><br />Born in Houston, Texas, Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross spent her childhood in San Antonio where as the oldest of five children, she comes from a long line of physicians and healers. Her mother’s father was a well-known physician in Bryan, Texas, who opened his own hospital and nursing school. His mother, Betty Love, was a Cherokee medicine woman.<br /><br />Dr. Ross wanted to be a doctor from the age of nine and worked many summers and vacations in her grandfather’s office, going with him on house calls, helping him deliver babies and learning how to dispense medications in his office pharmacy.<br /><br />Dr. Ross’s Medical Background<br />Dr. Ross completed her undergraduate degree in Modern Foreign Languages at Purdue University and then was a full-time mother of her two older sons before returning to school to complete her Pre-Med requirements. She then went to the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Ross’s practice experience after medical school helped fuel her interest in understanding what makes people heal as she saw that most of her patients’ medical problems were related to lifestyle habits and the stresses of modern living.<br /><br />In searching for a better way to address these issues, Dr. Ross began to explore complementary and alternative therapies and the use of herbs and supplements for her patients. She then completed a residency in Preventive Medicine at Loma Linda University and set up practice in San Diego, California, where she eventually opened three women’s centers where she practiced primary care and office gynecology. Her women’s centers integrated the best of western medicine with complementary and alternative therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, chiropractic, and nutrition counseling. She developed and ran The Anchor Program that offered a holistic approach for individuals with food and body image iss