Mitchell, Teri D.

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Mitchell, Teri D.

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Journalist, lawyer, and television producer. Work has appeared on NBC and CNN.

WRITINGS:

(With Stacy Ann Mitchell) Livin' Large: African American Sisters Confront Obesity, Hilton Publishing (Roscoe, IL), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Lawyer and journalist Teri D. Mitchell, along with her biological sister, Stacy Ann Mitchell, wrote the health-advice book Livin' Large: African American Sisters Confront Obesity. The book aims to empower African American women to take control of their health. The authors explain that black women in the United States suffer from disproportionate rates of obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and other conditions that are largely related to behavior choices. In chapters structured as friendly dialogues, Stacy Ann Mitchell, a physician, explains to her sister, who describes herself as recovering from obesity, that negative patterns that have become ingrained in many black families can contribute to disease and have caused black women undue suffering due to poor health. Challenging the stereotype of the heavy African American woman, the Mitchells emphasize the health risks of obesity and encourage their readers to take positive steps to lose weight and to develop proactive relationships with health-care providers who can provide necessary information about maintaining good health.

Writing in Library Journal, Nicola A. Cooke noted that the book covers information applicable to women of all ethnicities, but that its approach is uniquely appealing. The critic appreciated the fact that Dr. Mitchell's medical analysis is interspersed with the more personal details of Teri Mitchell's struggles with her weight. This material, in Cooke's view, brings humor and warmth to the subject and makes the book a two-way conversation rather than a lecture. Cecily D. Cooper, writing in the Black Issues Book Review, praised the book's informative message and positive stance, concluding that its argument shows that black women "no longer have to perish for lack of knowledge."