Come and join the Yes SHE Can Project conversation with Fareeha Jay! 

From mature student to 700,000+ followers – Fareeha Jay on food, diabetes, social media and finding your own path

What happens when you start casually sharing posts about food and healthy eating on Facebook… and suddenly more than 700,000 people are listening?

That’s exactly what happened to award-winning registered dietitian Fareeha Jay.

In this episode, I chat to Fareeha about her incredible journey from moving to the UK in 2004, becoming a mature student and qualifying as a dietitian, to building a huge online community and her own successful business, Shawk.

Fareeha specialises in diabetes and South Asian nutrition, and our conversation goes way beyond diets.

We talk about why healthy eating has become so complicated, the pressure to find the “perfect” diet, and the huge amount of conflicting nutrition advice we’re faced with online.

We also talk about type 2 diabetes, particularly within South Asian communities, some of the warning signs people shouldn’t ignore, and why exercise and movement can be such an important starting point.

One of my favourite parts of this conversation was Fareeha’s honesty about being a dietitian and still being human. We talk about the pressure health professionals can feel to appear like they have the “perfect” lifestyle, when in reality they face many of the same challenges as the rest of us.

And then there’s her business journey. Fareeha never set out to build a 700,000+ following. It happened organically by sharing useful information and connecting with people — a brilliant reminder that sometimes the opportunities we create aren’t necessarily the ones we planned for.

We chat about:

​- Fareeha’s journey to the UK and becoming a dietitian later in life

- ​How a part-time NHS role sparked her passion for diabetes education

​- Diabetes and South Asian communities

​- Accidentally building an audience of more than 700,000 people

​- Turning an online audience into a successful business

​- The biggest misconceptions around healthy eating

​- Why there isn’t one perfect diet for everyone

​- Nutrition misinformation on social media

​- Making healthy eating sustainable rather than restrictive

- ​Traditional South Asian food and healthy eating

​- Early warning signs of diabetes

​- Exercise, movement and lifestyle changes

- ​Why a diagnosis shouldn’t define you

- ​The reality of being a dietitian who is still human

- ​Fareeha’s ambitions for books and TV

​And, of course, a little rapid-fire fun!

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by nutrition advice online, struggled with the idea of “healthy eating”, or simply want to hear the story behind one woman’s unexpected journey to building such a huge community, this one is for you.