The gut-health superstar  

I was filming a YouTube video interview with Dr Megan Rossi last week. You might know her as ‘The Gut Health Doctor’, the name she uses for her Instagram handle and when she appears on TV shows like This Morning.

I’ve been working with Megan for about six years: we ran a column together when I first worked at Women’s Health and she’s remained a go-to expert ever since. Her niche — blending her work as a research scientist at King’s College London with excellent public communication — has made her wildly successful.

As well as holding a university position and authoring several books, she owns Bio&Me, a gut-boosting granola brand, and SmartStrains, liquid probiotics targeted at specific issues. When does she sleep? Unclear.

In terms of nailing a core message and distributing it widely, she’s a pro. And, sure, the heights she’s reached are not going to be replicable for everyone. But I do think there’s a tonne of lessons that can be instructive for those of us working in media and messaging, more broadly.

One is that she worked hard on the long game of building up her credibility, consistently sharing studies and insights on social before she had a massive following. Another is that she’s remained steady with her key message, always calling out fads and noting when an intervention is in the early days of research and so can’t have big claims extrapolated from it, or cautioning that the best thing to do for your gut health is pretty simple — eat a diverse range of plant foods. This marks her out from the vast majority of people trying to jump on the gut health trend, many of whom promote scantily-evidenced ways to ‘heal your gut’. 

And since becoming widely-known she’s maintained a firm eye on her Instagram account, continuing to share things you don’t find anywhere else: breaking down the results of a recently published nutrition paper or a recipe she’s created. This commitment and sticking to the science over the years has compounded to make her such a success story.

If you’re working on any sort of strategy for a health and wellness personality, her game plan is pure perfection.