Roma van der Walt is the founder of Vitelle, a platform on a mission to improve the health and longevity of women 35+ through personalised data driven protocols designed specifically for female bodies.
She is a mother of two and came out of the pandemic “suddenly” over 40 and honestly a bit overwhelmed at what this next decade and stage in life would mean. Roma supposes that she’s still figuring this out as she is now a second time immigrant in Australia with children that are multicultural and having left everything she knew, in the Northern Hemisphere.
Roma grew up in Germany as an immigrant child to a mother from Poland and a dad from Kenya and started sports at age 5, then got recruited to the German national team for Modern Pentathlon at age 15. She left Germany almost exactly 25 years to the day of her parents’ arrival in Germany, to live in NYC, her dream city.
Roma spent almost a decade working at the United Nations, before shifting gears back to sport and applying her experiences and knowledge as a professional athlete to maternal health and community building in NY.
How has being a pro-athlete changed your view on women’s health, particularly after becoming a Mum?
The biggest asset from my athlete years is the stamina and perseverance I can now bring to being a mother. Weekends used to be so relaxing and now my husband and I emerge on Monday a bit frazzled, not sure where our time and energy has gone. My pregnancies were textbook but my deliveries were not.
I think the biggest issue I have with the medical system is that women have to advocate quite vehemently for themselves to be heard. It’s rare for doctors to trust our intuition and frankly there’s also a lot of burnout on the doctors’ side where appointment times are short and the volume is quite high.
Both times in labour, I had to request, beg for and then insist on an epidural and heard ranging sentences from “it’s not time yet” to “childbirth wasn’t intended to be pain free”. Trust me, both times it was FAR from pain free. I laboured for 25 hours with my son and 15 with my daughter (lucky I was strong) and even when my water broke, the midwife asked me if I was sure. I think I learned as an athlete when it’s necessary to push through pain and childbirth for me, was not that.
Why do you think it’s important for us to adopt a holistic approach; body, mind and soul when it comes to health and fitness?
We have to shift from sick care and symptom treating to true healthcare that is preventive. For that to be true, the incredible medical community must work in tandem with the fabulous holistic care providers that exist. Especially in women’s health there are still so many gaps in research and up to 80% of approved drugs that get pulled from the market have to be recalled for women because they weren’t tested on us and are causing horrible adverse effects.
Holistic care has such a hippie connotation for many people but modalities like acupuncture and Chinese medicine are evidence based and proven to treat both body and mind incredibly well. Exercise is known to pay the biggest dividends in the long run for both physical, cardiovascular and brain health.
We don’t like to ask for help and I see too many women brave and toughen it out too long, whether it’s emotional health or even injuries. But anytime a woman is empowered and educated to take care of herself, she also anchors her family, community and wider network.
You work primarily with women who are in their midlife. Being in the early 40s myself with friends who’re in the same stage of life, I can’t help but feel that we’re often embarrassed talking about changes in our bodies for example, perimenopause, why do you think this may be the case? What tips and advice can you share around this?
Our generation is very lucky to have so much information at our fingertips and the creator economy on social media has produced some great work (some not so great). I think I have always been quite open within my maternal health groups to share what was going on with me and show myself vulnerably. That allowed other people to open up about struggles with motherhood identity, sexual wellness, sadness, overwhelm, weird symptoms… and women who happened to be in the community were better prepared for what was coming.
I once had a hormonal reaction post birth, where my thumb wouldn’t stop bleeding. For a week I kept bandaging it and finally friends nudged me to go see a doctor. It required medical attention, painkillers that meant I had to stop breastfeeding for 24 hours. Perimenopause is like that. Your body and mind do some really strange things. I have heard some crazy stories about women’s bodies and honestly it’s quite lonely if we can’t share that with others. When we do, we empower someone else to take better care of themselves and we ultimately find solutions for more of us.
My three main tips over 40 are:
1) Embrace that you don’t have to care as much anymore what others think of you.
2) Share your experiences in your safe space, because somebody else is looking for answers.
3) If vanity is your motivator to take better care of yourself, don’t let anyone talk you out of it. We don’t have to be martyrs.
What are some of the key highlights that you’d like to share from your extraordinary journey from being a sport scientist with a broadcast media background and a former Team Germany Modern Pentathlete to now being the founder of Vitelle?
This work with Vitelle is the culmination of my pro athlete career and my studies. I was taken care of exceptionally well as a young woman. I had sports doctors, scientists and an incredible coach who knew that I needed to be a complete person in my private and professional life.
It was nice to feel taken care of and have data driven training and living protocols. I knew the numbers but didn’t have to fully understand the insights. There’s comfort in that and I want women to have that comfort at a stage in their lives when their body and mind is not as reliable as it was.
I hear from women a lot that they are curious about wearable data but it’s too much to learn. They want solutions. So at Vitelle we take the guesswork out of living healthy daily and preparing for the next stage and healthy ageing. We do that by creating personalised plans for female bodies, life stage, lifestyle and reproductive journey and then data informs us how to tweak it to level up. It’s very exciting.
What are some fun facts about you that you’d like to share?
I love driving but I narrate my inner monologue loudly in German, so now my 6 year old backseat drives like a maniac while telling people off in German. Not sure if I should be proud or mortified (like my husband is).
I have family on 4 of the 7 continents.
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