Tonya shares Movita in Coveteur Magazine

How did you get into the wellness space?

“Everyone has their own health journey. I was a kid who had allergies and asthma growing up, and I was a little overweight, so there was always that—how to be a certain size or whatever. Then, in 2007, the US Department of Health and Human Services asked me to be a spokesperson for their infant mortality awareness-raising campaign. It was called A Healthy Baby Begins with You, and I think they reached out to me because I’d done the children’s books and they know I cared about children. I joined the campaign and discovered that when you’re talking about a child’s health, you’re talking about women’s health. I traveled the country with that campaign and learned so much. I wanted to share it in a girlfriend-to-girlfriend kind of way, providing information and encouraging and inspiring women to lead their healthiest lives.”

What’s your current approach to wellness?

“Now I don’t look at it from the point of view of diet and weight. It’s really about ‘Am I taking good care of myself?’ I eat food to heal my body, not just to fuel my stomach, and it’s just become a passion. If women are healthy, it makes our communities healthier—it makes us all healthier. Also, I talk the talk, so I walk the walk. I’m not going to be out here telling people, ‘Live your best life, eat well, exercise, get your rest,’ and I’m not doing it. You’ll see it number one, and I don’t want to be hypocritical about it. So working in this space helps keep me going, too.”

Tell us about Movita:

“I started a website called Healthy You Now, not really knowing what I was doing. I was financing it myself, and in an effort to raise funds to keep it going, I met someone who was the head of a vitamin company. We were talking about the work I was doing and why it’s so important to me, and he was talking about bringing a really good organic product to the market that could deliver results for people. So we collaborated on Movita. The multivitamin was first, and we have prenatal and beauty that’s just coming out now. I’m the first person who will tell you that no one pill is going to do everything, but as part of a lifestyle of health and wellness, it can be helpful. I think of it as a tool in a women’s arsenal to be as healthy as you can be, because it can give you your baseline nutrition.”