Nutrition plays a key role in promoting one’s health and wellbeing irrespective of their age. However, few understand the intricacies of this science. Having spent years mastering her expertise in terms of providing science based nutritional advice is Hannah Kurian. A Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr with AfN London) and a Certified Sports Nutritionist from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (CISSN), Hannah is the founder of Healthy Beat, a Bangalore based provider of nutrition programmes. Through her firm, she helps people of all ages experience better health through evidence-based nutrition strategies that suit both their goals & lifestyle.

Hannah’s interest in holistic nutrition began owing to challenges faced on personal health fronts that she eventually overcame. She further noticed that even seasoned athletes who represent our country internationally are largely unaware of the nutrition that they need to sustain that level of activity. All these factors motivated Hannah to pursue her journey as a nutritionist. Today she is passionate about providing support to individuals struggling with chronic health conditions, athletes and individuals who want to improve their quality of life. Hannah achieves the same by undertaking a functional nutritional approach to health and performance. She works with clients to identify the underlying cause of why the body isn’t functioning optimally, and then provides a stepwise approach to heal, restore, & optimise health.

In an in-depth conversation with the Women Entrepreneur Team, Hannah shares her various areas of expertise as a nutritionist and much more. Here are snippets from the conversation.

Take us through your early educational journey and prior industry experience that you bring to the table.

I did a double major in Life-sciences in biochemistry with honours from St. Xaviers Mumbai. That’s also primarily when my interest in nutrition was solidified. Essentially, after that, I went on to do an internship with an animal health and nutrition company. Post that, I did my masters from University College London (UCL) in clinical and public health nutrition. During my masters, I started working with a top neurogastroenterologist in London. Being able to shadow an expert and get hands-on experience was a great learning experience for me. Upon my return to India, I was initially in the public health sectorwhere I worked on maternal health and child malnutrition with Bangalore Baptist Hospital. After that, I did a post-graduation diploma with the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

Throw some light on your expertise as a nutritionist. What are the various areas that Healthy Beat specializes in that makes it unique?

Functional nutrition is something that really resonates with me and I honestly believe that a number of chronic health conditions can be cured if not managed with the right nutrition. Healthy Beat is essentially a platform for people to understand how to make healthy eating a part of their lifestyle. With our program, we aim to empower clients with the right knowledge to make better dietary choices to empower people to make their own decisions. In fact, ‘BEAT’ from Healthy Beattranslates into a Balanced, Educative, and Adaptive Timely approach to your health. We strongly believe that everyone is different and hence we go into an in-depth analysis of each individual and curate personalizes programmes that focus on the uniqueness of each individual. We try to work within each one’s lifestyle so that we can provide people with sustainable and long term results. We also conduct workshops for certain focus groups as required.

“Improving clients quality of life through evidence based strategies”

In your opinion what have been some of the most significant milestones that you have achieved over the years? How do you keep yourself well aligned with the various evolutions occurring within your industry?

Being listed as a co-inventor in a patent at a fairly young age in my life was a big milestone for me. To be a part of organizations like the Association for Nutrition in London and ISSNrequires me to constantly keep myself up to date with the latest research.

One has to be disciplined about one’s health and therefore maintaining a healthy lifestyle is equally important to me. In India, doctors do not necessarily educate clients about their diet and hence one of my aims is to fill in this gap.

As a successful business leader, what advice would you present to young women and girls who aspire to become business leaders or entrepreneurs in the future?

If you are passionate about something and if you have an idea then go for it. There might be people who may not encourage you but it’s important to find a mentor. One should also ensure that she is going ahead on the right path. To start on your own is one of the toughest things. I have been lucky to be blessed with the right support of my family.

Hannah Kurian, Founder, Healthy Beat

A functional and performance based nutrition- Hannah’s objective is to help clients of all ages experience better health through evidence based nutrition strategies that suit both their goals & lifestyle.

She is a registered associate nutritionist with AfN (Association for Nutrition, London) and a certified sports nutritionist from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (CISSN).