Kelly McKenna: Managing My Health

Kelly McKenna shares about navigating through her health struggles.

I was in first grade when my friend approached me, “John pushed Will down the stairs,” he said. I froze. “Stay strong,” I told myself. Will is my brother. He lives with a disability, and moments like this happened often. I didn’t have words like “fight-or-flight” then.

I only knew that being strong meant pushing fear aside and carrying on. As I got older, that way of coping followed me. I began to measure strength by how much I could handle: how hard I could work and how much discomfort I could endure. By high school, that mindset was taking a toll. Junior year, my pediatrician suspected cancer. 

After months of testing, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, an autoimmune condition triggered by gluten and worsened by stress. Two years later, I was a Stanford University student and a varsity athlete. I looked healthy. But I sacrificed sleep, fueled long days with energy drinks, and treated stress as part of my identity rather than something worth paying attention to. In the years that followed, I faced Hashimoto’s disease, pancreatitis and chronic hives. 

What surprises me now is how little I understood about my health before I got sick. I knew what it meant to go to the doctor. I knew that illness came with diagnoses and treatments. But I hadn’t learned how sleep, nutrition, stress and environmental factors could shape how I felt over time. It took years of health challenges to make those connections. I sometimes wonder what would’ve been different if I’d learned them earlier. 

Not because a health class could have prevented every challenge, but because I might have understood sooner that taking care of myself wasn’t weakness. Being strong didn’t have to mean ignoring what my body was telling me. 

That’s what I wish we taught young people earlier: to understand their bodies before something goes wrong. Health shouldn’t be a subject we first encounter through a diagnosis. I had to get sick before I learned how to care for my body. I hope the next generation doesn’t have to. With a Perspective, I’m Kelly McKenna.

Kelly McKenna is the cofounder and CEO of a national nonprofit dedicated to helping individuals prevent chronic disease through education, advocacy, partnerships and storytelling.