As part of the new web series, The Role Model In You — here is the most recent interview. The Role Model In You series discusses how individuals were influenced as a child to lead a healthy lifestyle. It covers who influenced these individuals, the changes they made in their life to be healthy, and the message they would like to convey to the youth of today. Our guests include doctors, soccer stars, Super Bowl champions, NBA players, Olympic gold medalist, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and just regular people looking to share their story. We hope you enjoy it!
1. Your name, title, and age? What do you do (or did you do) for a living?
Ziporah Janowski, co-founder and president of Shane Diet & Fitness Resorts. I am 54. I was a corporate litigation attorney for nearly 25 years, switching careers in 2007 to found a weight loss and fitness company and grow my husband’s children’s weight loss camps for kids, Camp Shane.
2. Who was the person that inspired you as a child to eat healthy and stay fit? What was their relationship to you?
My mother, Chana Janowski, was my inspiration.
3. What did they do to inspire you?
My mother was a holocaust survivor, having spent her teen years in a concentration camp. Food was inordinately important in our home. She cooked every meal from scratch. She used the freshest and best ingredients she could find, spending a great amount of money on food relative to my father’s modest salary. She experimented with uncommon (at least back then) fruits and vegetables, such as persimmons and pomegranates, kiwis and squashes. She bought the finest meats and fish. We ate like kings. And though nothing was low cal or low fat, we ate until full and then stopped. We didn’t gain weight and knew what we were feeding our bodies. She had an intuitive sense of what was healthy and nurturing nutritionally and she blessed me with a love of nutrition.
4. How did their lesson change your life?
I learned to love to try new foods and that home cooked food is a key way to manage your weight and an incredibly enjoyable activity.
5. Do you convey their message to kids in your life presently?
I have conveyed this to our kids every day, offering them simple, home cooked meals and buying very few processed foods. I bake occasionally so we can also enjoy treats that are perishable and delicious and teach them nothing is forbidden.
6. What would be your main message to children today to lead healthy lifestyles?
Kids – cook your food! And get mom and dad to help (someone has to go marketing). It’s fun and easy and even really young kids can help in the kitchen. And try new foods. If you really hate it at least you had the adventure of trying.
7. Do you have a web site you would like to promote….web address only?