Tonya Lewis Lee is an accomplished woman on many fronts. She’s an attorney; an advocate for gender and race equality; a film producer; author of three children’s books; an entrepreneur and founder of HealthyYouNow, a site designed to help women make good healthy choices. She’s also a mother and the wife of Spike Lee.
Women need to be talking and sharing what we learn along the way with one another.
In 2007 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Mortality Health asked Tonya to be the spokesperson for their “A Healthy Baby Begins with You” infant mortality awareness campaign.
“We’re really talking about the health of a woman, because if she’s healthy, she has a healthy baby,” said Tonya. “As I traveled around the country, it became clear that when it comes to women’s health, we’re not doing as good a job as we should be doing. Initially we were primarily focused on women of color, but when you talk about infant mortality in this country… Even if you take black women out, we’re not doing very well. I wanted to get information to women in a way that wasn’t clinical or governmental. I would say women of color are our baseline, because they are underserved, but we all need to be talking and sharing what we learn along the way with one another.”
Tonya has joined forces with Movita, manufacturers of organic vitamins created for today’s woman. “We’re coming out with an organic vitamin and following up with a prenatal,” said Tonya. “We’re putting their business sense and my style and love of all things women’s health into it. For me it’s about understanding multivitamins. Do we really need vitamins, and what does it mean when you take vitamins as opposed to vitamins your body doesn’t absorb?”
Tonya has several book adaptation projects she’s producing. “One is a New York Times bestselling novel and National Book Award nominee called Monster by Walter Dean Myers. Another is the Gallagher Girls based on a book series which we’ve got setup at Paramount and have a team of writers working on. I’m trying to get all of these up and going. It always comes down to raising money. Sometimes I forget I’m a woman, but then you come up against something, and I realize I have to deal with this being female ‘stuff.’ It’s frustrating, but it’s why we all need to support one another.”
12 thoughts on “MEET TONYA LEWIS LEE”
Fascinating lady! She’s so right, we can’t
be, or do it all! The days of thinking we can are blessedly over. Great interview.
Jennifer,
Yes, it’s refreshing to now here women admit we can’t do it all.
XOXO,
Brenda
What a great interview. I love hearing the voices of powerful women.
Jen,
I think Tonya Lewis Lee is definitely a powerful force and a champion of women.
XOXO,
Brenda
I enjoyed learning about this fascinating and accomplished woman. Great interview.
Thank Helene! She’s an interesting woman.
What an interesting woman! Great interview and very inspirational. Like Jen, I love powerful women like Tonya. Essie xx
Essie,
Tonya is a 1010PP kind of woman, that’s for sure. I enjoyed meeting her.
XOXOX,
Brenda
So much strength and self confidence. I think we should all take the time to look back at who we were and celebrate who we’ve become as we walk forward.
Karen,
What a great exercise! I think we’d have more self-respect if we viewed ourselves in light of how far we’ve come. Love this idea!!
Brenda
What an inspiring interview with a talented and multi-faceted woman!
Donna,
I have a hunch we only scratched the surface in getting to know Tonya. She is an amazing woman.
XOXO,
Brenda
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