I was a happy kid growing up, however I always felt like something was not quite right.
I remember looking at my friends at school and wondering why I was bigger than them. I knew there was something different about me, even if I could not yet name it. Back then, I had no idea that food could be connected to emotions. I only understand now, as an adult, that I was often soothing my feelings with sweets because there was a lot happening in my childhood that I did not know how to process.
One of my strongest memories is our pantry.
My dad was a truck driver, and he often traveled to Germany. When he came home, he would bring back all kinds of chocolates and sweets that were hard to get in Poland at the time. Our pantry was always full of these incredible treats. And after school, I would go straight there. Without fail. Every single day.
The chocolate bars came packaged in carton boxes with a little window where you could see the chocolate inside. I remember thinking I was very clever, that if I ate the chocolate around the edges and left the visible part in the middle, no one would notice.
Spoiler alert: my mom did.
Looking back now, I can see that many of those moments happened when I felt sad, lonely, or overwhelmed and did not understand my emotions. And when my mom responded with anger instead of curiosity, instead of asking why I was doing this, it only deepened the problem.
One of the hardest periods in my childhood was when my parents were getting divorced.
It was an incredibly stressful time. My mom was busy dealing with the divorce, my dad was not around as much, and there was so much tension and fighting in the home. On top of that, my little brother was only two years old, so most of the attention naturally went to him. As a child, I did not fully understand everything that was happening, but I could feel that my family, the way I had known it, was falling apart. And that felt terrifying.
My brain went looking for comfort somewhere, and instead of finding it in my parents, it found it in food.
I reached for chocolates, chips, wafers, anything sweet. Sometimes I would search the house for small amounts of money just so I could go to the store, buy sweets, and eat them all at once in hiding. I remember going through jars of Nutella very quickly. One moment that stayed with me was when my mom noticed how much Nutella I had eaten in such a short time. I was already struggling with my weight, and when she saw me reaching for it again, she said very coldly, "You've had enough. You need to stop."
She knew I needed to stop because it was not good for my body, but no one asked me how I was feeling. No one asked why I was drowning in a Nutella trap.
Looking back now, I truly believe those experiences shaped my relationship with food for many years.
As a teenager and young adult, I swung to the other extreme. After years of emotional eating, I developed a restrictive eating disorder. I barely ate. I lost my period. I became extremely underweight. It took me many years to understand what had really been happening all along. Only in the last few years have I been able to truly heal my relationship with food by recognizing the patterns that began in childhood and breaking the cycle I had been stuck in for most of my life.
Now, as an adult, I can clearly see that the real root of my weight gain was emotional.
At the time, I did not understand that at all. I just knew that when I ate sweets, I felt better.
When my parents were going through their divorce, there was so much happening around me emotionally, but none of it was really being talked about. I felt lonely, confused, and like I did not fully belong anywhere. Even though I had friends, I never felt close enough to anyone to open up. I remember learning my parents were getting divorced in the winter, and the divorce happened later that year in the fall, yet for almost nine months, none of my close friends even knew what was happening in my family.
At home, my mom was doing her best to hold everything together. She was raising my little brother, navigating the divorce, and climbing her career ladder all at once. Her way of dealing with problems was always very practical. If something went wrong, she would immediately try to solve it. But there was rarely space to talk about why things were happening or how I was actually feeling. So when I had a bad day at school, or something upset me, the focus was usually on fixing the situation rather than understanding the emotions underneath it.
Slowly, I developed the feeling that there was not really anyone who could fully understand what was happening inside me. The truth is, I did not fully understand it myself either. But what I did understand was that when I ate chocolate or other sweet foods, I felt better, even if only for a moment. Food became the place I went for comfort, relief, and sometimes simply to feel something good when everything else felt confusing or heavy.
Looking back now, I can see very clearly that the weight gain was never really about food itself. It was about emotions I did not know how to process, and did not have the tools or support to talk through. Food simply became the way I coped, and for a very long time, it was my only way of coping.
That is a big part of why Step Together resonated with me so deeply.
Once I finally resolved my own struggles with emotional eating, I made a promise to myself that I would do everything I could to help others avoid going down the same path. It took me many years to get where I am today. I had to do a lot of internal work to overcome my eating disorder and rebuild my relationship with food. I also spent years learning how to eat well, live well, and move my body in a healthy way without turning exercise into punishment or food into emotional escape.
After all of that work, I realized how many people are still stuck in the same cycle I once lived in. Emotional eating in childhood. Struggles with weight. Then swinging into restriction, dieting, or other painful extremes later in life. At some point, I made a very clear promise to myself: with everything I had learned and experienced, I would try to help as many people as possible avoid going through the same thing.
When I discovered Step Together, it felt like a real "No way this exists" moment.
Instead of waiting to try to fix the problem later in adulthood, Step Together focuses on helping families understand the emotional side of eating while children are still growing up. That was exactly what little Marta needed. And as soon as I realized that this program helps families understand what my own family did not know at the time, I knew I wanted to be part of it.
For me, this mission is deeply personal.
That little girl in me deserved more understanding. More support. Someone who could see what was really going on behind the food.
And I believe that every child going through something similar today deserves that same understanding.
Helping people become healthier, feel stronger in their bodies, improve their energy, and care for their long-term health is something I deeply care about. Helping people get their health back is what gets me out of bed every morning.
What I Want Every Parent to Hear
And if there is one thing I would want every parent to hear, it is this:
Do not look for quick fixes.
Building a healthy relationship with food, health, and habits takes time. There is no shortcut around that.
I also believe it is important not to chase perfection. Good enough, done consistently, is always more powerful than trying to do everything perfectly and then giving up when it becomes too hard.
Health is a long game. It requires patience, resilience, and the willingness to keep going even when progress feels slow. There will be moments when it feels heavy or frustrating, but those are often the moments when it matters most to remember what you are actually working for.
There is no greater gift than health.
And health is not just about food. It is about the full picture: choosing nourishing foods, learning how to understand emotions, building strong family connections, and creating an environment where children feel supported.
Whatever health looks like in your family, it is something incredibly valuable.
And it is worth fighting for.
