Health is so broad that we can talk about it endlessly. It affects everyday life, from sleep to nutrition, through the mind, sexuality, sport, skin, weight… It can affect household products, children’s snacks or how we choose a pair of shoes. There are endless tips we can give so that people can take responsibility for their health, in better shape, without necessarily taking medication.
I come from a very modest family. My father, a pizza maker, always told me: “You have to work hard to be successful.” My mother was a saleswoman in a bakery, she stopped taking care of me and my two brothers before becoming a nanny. I grew up in a tough neighborhood in the 1920s.my district, in a fifteen-story HLM tower.
I was an average but serious student and my father pushed me to study medicine after my high school diploma. I stuck with it and completed my ten years of study. I was hesitant to become a pulmonologist, but I didn’t want to focus on just one organ. I eventually returned to general medicine. I really liked emergency medicine, and I started working at SOS Médicos in 2013. I immediately loved doing home visits, which I still do.
“I do not make commandments”
In 2017, my best friend, a radiologist, encouraged me to audition for the programme “Les Grandes Gueules” on RMC, and I was selected. That’s how it all started. Little by little, I began to focus on popularising medicine. I wrote a first book, became a columnist for Europe 1, then for “Revista Salud” on France 5, and I launched myself on social media just after the Covid crisis. I saw so much nonsense there that I thought to myself that we could try to offer different content for young people, talking to them about their health. In less than a year, a million people followed me.
I do not give orders; I do not want to say “You must not smoke” I want to explain what we gain by quitting smoking. I tell concrete, simple things, with short videos. Obviously I talk a lot about food and the products that young people consume on a daily basis.
I myself ate very badly for a long time, because for my parents the reward was having the branded products we saw on television. However, food is neither a reward nor a punishment. I understood late in life that we are what we eat and that a good diet allows us to live better and longer, something that is not taught in medicine.
I recommend simple, fresh, raw foods, a variety of seasonal products. For me, eggs are ideal: nutritious, low in calories, full of protein, good in the mouth and inexpensive, and can be prepared in a thousand ways. The recipe for scrambled eggs, which chef Thierry Marx taught me, is perfect: ultra-easy, delicious, excellent for your health.
Zero limitations to stay young, by Jimmy Mohamed, Flammarion, 188 p., €19. On Instagram.
