After 30 years of being inundated daily with conflicting health advice from many sources, MB decided to evaluate the latest research herself. She was almost rejected by her graduate program in Obesity and Weight Management, as the courses were designed for medical professionals and she was a public school theatre director, but University of South Wales decided to give her a chance after she demonstrated her research and writing skills on medical case studies. Her literature review, “The Effect of Environmental Endocrine Disruptors on Insulin Resistance in Women,” was the final component of her master’s degree. However enjoyable creating dense scientific writing with standard citations was for her, she knew that this was not a format that appealed to the average reader. Therefore, she set her sights on her favorite type of presentation: Broadway-style musical theatre.
In summer of 2019, her work American Diet – A Metabolic Musical premiered in the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC. While MB loves the stage, she realized that a singing and rapping liver’s live performance might not be the most accessible medium for delivering important concepts in metabolic endocrinology. Live shows only reach those in attendance, and theatre venues were taking an especially large hit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One day during one of MB’s rants about how we don’t even teach the most basic function of the hormone insulin in the k-12 health curriculum, a patiently listening friend said to her, “You should write all of that stuff you said about the pancreas in books so that my kids can read ‘em.” MB decided that this was a great idea. Children’s literature would be the perfect venue for the delivery of important concepts in metabolic endocrinology. MB has been writing and illustrating furiously ever since, with careful consideration for what the hormone leptin would look like personified, how ghrelin’s accurate peptide sequence should appear on the page, and how the communication between the stomach and brain would sound in words.
MB creates art that can travel across different media. Her love of books, music, dance, paint, video, animation, and most other forms of creative work keeps her busy in Point of Rocks, Maryland, where she lives with her hot engineer husband, their kiddo, and a set of guinea pigs. MB is a teacher, writer, composer, and all-around creator, but she has held many other jobs including grocery store cashier, tutor, retail shipping associate, restaurant server, amusement park costumer/dresser, and interior painter. She has never liked coloring books, but she would happily create one for the many people who do enjoy spending their time tediously filling in the shapes.
One might ask her, “How can you explain complicated metabolic processes to children?” She would answer, “Much more easily than I can explain them to adults.” MB’s work is whimsical, yet scientific. Her lessons about how the human body works are fun to follow, yet critically important to human health. Individuals are able to take much better care of themselves if they understand how the body works, a process that begins during childhood. MB is paving the way for this understanding.