Healthy skin and nutritionist expert, Jennifer Fugo, joins the NAA

We are so excited to welcome Jennifer Fugo, MS, CNS to the NAA Advisory Board! Not only is Jennifer an incredibly knowledgeable and experienced nutritionist, but she also has specialized knowledge on helping people reclaim healthy skin by overcoming chronic skin issues such as eczema and psoriasis in a truly integrative way.

Jennifer Fugo, MS, CNS is a clinical nutritionist empowering women who’ve been failed by conventional medicine to beat chronic skin and unending gut challenges. Because she’s overcome a long history of gut issues and eczema, Jennifer has empathy and insight to help her clients discover missing pieces and create doable integrative plans.

She has a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Bridgeport and is a Certified Nutrition Specialist. Her work has been featured on Dr. Oz, Reuters, Yahoo!, CNN, and many podcasts and summits. Jennifer is an Amazon best-selling author and the host of the Healthy Skin Show.

As we do with all our Advisory Board members, we asked Jennifer to share why she wanted to be part of the Nutritional Aesthetics® Alliance:

The Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance:

What excites you the most about The Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance?

Jennifer Fugo:

I’m incredibly excited to be a part of an organization that is pairing the much-needed conversation connecting skin quality and issues with deeper parts of health.

Nutrition plays such a HUGE role in the body’s ability to build healthy skin, yet it’s often ignored. Instead, topical products have been the go-to options because of convenience and a lack of knowledge about how we truly support healthy skin throughout the ages.

Ultimately I believe the NAA is a changemaker in an industry awash in toxic ingredients and quick fixes to move the conversation away from beauty for beauty’s sake and towards the idea that true health is mirrored through our skin from the inside out.

The NAA:

How has Nutritional Aesthetics® (integrating nutrition and lifestyle changes with skincare and self-care) impacted your practice and/or work?

Jennifer Fugo:

I really take a deep dive into people’s skin stories and journeys because I work with a clientele dealing with chronic skin rash conditions like eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, dandruff, lichen sclerosus, and tinea versicolor. The standard “here’s another steroid cream” isn’t cutting it and these people have a deep desire to look beyond just the topical options to see what disturbances are lurking under the surface. I consider sixteen different root causes in my clinical practice which helps me better (and more holistically) meet someone where they are AND to take meaningful steps forward.

Skin is ultimately connected to so many other organs and systems in the body, and when things are off, it’s not surprising that you end up with blemished, problem, or rashed skin. I literally learned this the hard way when I ended up with eczema during grad school that seemed to come out of nowhere! Though I initially tried the conventional route (which really only gave me steroid creams), even the “natural remedies” failed to truly fix my skin. As I read more and more, I began to realize that there had to be something else I was missing.

The Healthy Skin Show with Jennifer Fugo

Applying these principles literally changed my life and gave me back healthy clear skin, so I know all too well how important this work is!

I began my podcast The Healthy Skin Show, because I agree that we collectively need to pool our knowledge and research from all different fields. This way we can help people who are struggling with skin issues find answers that impact their skin, but also their health as a whole.

The NAA:

Complete the sentence: “For optimal skin health, I wish people would do more of ___________________, and less of ___________________.”

Jennifer Fugo:

For optimal skin health, I wish people would do more critical thinking and less assuming that information online is correct and accurate. That’s truly how the “coconut oil is good for skin” came into being. It was written about on big websites without much expert opinion and data shared about it. Thanks to the work of Rachael Pontillo and the NAA, we know that isn’t true.

When someone writes an article, we need to ask for reference and then take the time to look at that before sharing something as #truth because it’s on a website with 100,000 followers. There is plenty of junk science out there used to prop up ideas (and even some trends in the health and wellness industry) that do not hold water at the end of the day. But unless you really take the time to look at WHERE the idea is coming from and consider the angles, you can end up believing that something like coconut oil is magical when that’s simply not the case.

Leave a comment about aromatherapy in the spa!

We could not agree more!

We’d love to hear from you too! What do you wish people would do more of and less of in pursuit of clear, smooth, healthy skin? Please share in the comments!