How Do We Change Mindsets and Expectations?
At Inclusive Fitness, we believe in creating healthy lifestyles for people who are neurodivergent, have intellectual disabilities or delays, or have special healthcare needs. We collaborate with self-advocates, caregivers, professionals, and other leading thinkers and doers to shift the paradigm in how we think about and support healthy living.
We recently spoke with Dr. Naomi Gothier, a physician practicing at Boston Children’s Hospital, specializing in pediatric cardiology. She is the director of the cardiac fitness program and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gothier’s research interests center around the range and plasticity of exercise physiology and congenital and pediatric acquired heart disease, and the response to treatment via exercise therapeutics. Additionally, she is interested in the relationship between exercise delivery, resiliency, and positive health in terms of cardiopulmonary fitness, patient-reported outcomes, and longitudinal surgical outcomes.
Dr. Gothier’s journey into the exercise and fitness space was a bit of a roundabout journey. She started by considering different ways of promoting what is possible for patients rather than what is not possible. She began with an overnight camp for kids with heart conditions, which was a way for them to find what they could do rather than what they couldn’t do. As she did that, she realized that there were a lot of ways to impact children in this space. She pivoted to studying exercise in congenital heart disease in her field at Boston Children’s Hospital, which led to her career there and subsequently to developing a whole field of exercise cardiology.
Promoting Possibility
At Inclusive Fitness, we are inspired by Dr. Gothier’s commitment to promoting positive health through exercise and her dedication to finding what is possible for her patients. We believe that by focusing on what individuals can do, we can create a more inclusive world where everyone can build strength, confidence, and community.
Through our work in the exercise and fitness space, we have come to realize the importance of athlete empowerment. We strongly believe that athletes should be empowered to take control of their health and well-being. This includes giving them the knowledge and tools to make informed decisions about their health, as well as providing them with the support and resources they need to achieve their goals.
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