About Us

Byte Wellness is a digital resource that delivers wellness courses via text message and is designed with the health experiences of Black women-identifying people in mind.

Welcome!

I’m Mawusi Arnett, MD MPH- Founder of Byte Wellness.

I’m a board-certified Family Medicine Physician (MD) with a background in Public Health (MPH). My patients call me Dr. Wuse (Woose like moose). Byte was a direct result of my experiences with patients during my clinical training.

Click to learn more about me.

Otherwise, keep reading to see the inspiration for Byte Wellness.

Our Story

I created Byte Wellness to tackle a problem I saw my primary care patients struggle with everyday: “not enough” syndrome. 

The “not enough” syndrome was how I made sense of a pattern In my Clinic.

My sickest patients tended to be people of color and women. They also had very limited access to health resources like nutritious food, access to specialist doctors and trustworthy health information.

During an office visit, a woman with diabetes would ask, “Dr. Wuse, how do you expect me to eat the right foods if I can’t get to a grocery store?”. And I would think: True. Not enough healthy food.

Then another woman managing an anxiety disorder might ask “where in the world will I find time to meditate when I’m the only one taking care of the kids?” Not enough childcare.

Prescribing medication to people with the not enough syndrome was like applying a bandaid to a deep knife wound.

Both wound dresser and the victim knew the only real cure was to find the source of the bleeding and stop it. It was clear to me, just as much as to the people I sat with in clinic, that an important step in making them better was pinpointing their health resource limitations and finding ways to overcome them.

But, there never seemed to be enough time during our 15-minute appointments to give my patients the health support they needed.

We needed time to dissect their limited resources and trouble shoot how to create healthy habits in spite of those limitations. If we couldn’t complete those discussions during the clinic visit, then they would somehow need to access this support from outside the clinic. I began programming brief health lessons in the form of text messages to help people do just that.

As people requested more text messages and different types of lessons, Byte Wellness was born.

What Does “Resource-Driven” Learning Look Like?

We now feature a variety of time-effective text message-based courses primarily covering nutrition: a plant-based eating introduction, plant-based eating in a food desert, eating for immune support and more. Based on our members' requests, we're building out our wellness platform to cover non-nutrition topics like mindfulness training and education on chronic diseases.

At Byte Wellness, we promote equal health opportunities for all. To achieve that, we need to build very specific solutions to match the unique patterns of resource restriction shared by members of a single community.

That’s why we provide affordable wellness education tailored to a range of health experiences that Black and woman-identifying people share.

But, this isn’t your 8th grade health class. Our resource-driven approach:

1) teaches you how to reach your wellness goals using the resources you have access to and

2) supports communities in helping each other increase access to the health resources they need.

How do we know which resources are in short-supply for Black and woman-identifying people?

First, we evaluate data on health disparities and health behaviors from organizations like the CDC. Then, we turn to history and common sense. Structural racism and sexism are 2 powerful systems that have likely affected the lives of every Black and woman-identifying person in the US, whether they realize it or not. These systems manifest in social and economic disparities…which translate to health disadvantages.

For example, sexist structures lead to lower wages for women compared to men. And the history of de jure, now defacto, residential segregation results in lower access to supermarkets in Black American communities compared to their White counterparts even when income and education level are accounted for (Yes, this is a real thing!).

These are realities that many people many people would reasonably interpret as barriers to preparing whole food, plant-heavy meals at home (i.e prohibitive travel time and perceptions that produce is less affordable than more calorie-dense foods). Our resource-driven wellness course (Plant-Based Eating in a Food Desert) highlights the affordability of whole foods, and educates people on supermarket alternatives (urban farm or farmers’ market) and teaches folks how to choose the most nutritious options when fresh produce is not available.

Finally, we piece all this together with anecdotal evidence from the health experiences of Black women we know and love.

What Will You Get From Byte?

Byte creates a safe space for people like you to learn About the connection between your health resources, habits and state of wellness; be inspired by each other, and elevate your community’s wellbeing.

Learn about the link between your body, spirit and health from like-minded experts in health and wellness.

• Choose a Byte Wellness Daily Text Course, and get answers to your burning health questions sent directly to your cell phone.

Be Inspired to change your habits for the better.

• Reach your wellness goals with behavior hacks and recipe tricks that help you work smarter not harder with a personalized Byte Wellness Coaching Program.

• Connect with wellness resources and providers from all over the U.S.

Elevate your own wellness and your community’s wellbeing beyond what you thought was possible.

• Take advantage of our hands-on resources to organize health and wellness courses and cooking classes within your community.

I believe people from all walks of life can benefit from Byte Wellness’s resource-driven approach to wellness training. While our coursework is designed with the health experiences of Black women in mind, we welcome everyone to learn and grow with us.

@drwuse

-Mawusi Arnett, MD,MPH- Byte Wellness Founder and Lead Eater

Get to Know Dr. Wuse

I’m Mawusi Arnett. I’m a board-certified Family Medicine Physician (MD) with a public health background (MPH).

My friends and family call me Wuse (woose like moose).

I care a lot about health equity and making sure everyone has the resources they need to make healthy choices. That’s why I founded Byte Wellness.

Byte Wellness is a digital wellness education resource that delivers courses via text message. Although we welcome everyone who can use them, our courses were designed to address the specific health experiences shared by Black and women-identifying people.

What Gives Me Life These Days? Handstands.

I also like to swim and run even though I’m a little rusty compared to my college track and field days.

And, I’ll almost never turn down a good cup of earl grey tea or a deep dish pizza.

HoW IT STARTED

I’m a born-and-raised Chicagoan- “a girl from the South Side” as Michelle Obama termed herself. Fun fact: we have a high school, college, and college major in common).

Growing up, I saw first-hand how neighborhood characteristics can impact a person’s health (for better or for worse).

And, I was awestruck by the innovative work-arounds that community members developed as a direct response to a lack of health resources (i.e living in a food desert).

So, when I left Chicago for college, it was a no-brainer that I’d be back. And, when I came back, I’d be armed with the skills to support the health and life chances of people in my community and others like it.

After high school, I spent about a decade in the Northeastern United States. 

I went to college at Princeton University and then straight to the University of Pennsylvania for medical school.  Along the way, I earned a Masters degree in Public Health at Johns Hopkins. 

My residency training to be a Family Medicine physician brought me back home to the Chicago area (to Northwestern Medicine).

After residency, (during the height of the pandemic) I worked as a hospitalist (inpatient) doctor at Northwestern hospital in Lake Forest, IL.

HOW IT’S GOING

Now, I work as a travel doctor while building my own preventive medicine practice to help people make meaningful shifts in lifestyle habits. My husband and I split time in Chicago and Los Angeles, California.

My stint away from Chicago allowed me to spend time in other communities that had a lot in common with the South Side. I taught TONS of nutrition classes in churches and community centers. I even had the privilege of helping some lovely folks in the Philadelphia’s Mantua neighborhood build a grant-funded healthy cooking program.

Byte Wellness pulls together all these experiences to provide health education and healthy habit support to people who need it most.