Pictured is Emily Fisher with the students she taught English to in rural Thailand. (Submitted by Emily Fisher)
Published May 29, 2025 under Student Stories
A year after graduating from high school, Emily Fisher’s life took an unexpected turn. She began suffering from fatigue and digestion issues. Her hair fell out, and she lost 20 pounds. Doctors were mystified, running tests for everything from hormone imbalances to a brain tumor
“It was the scariest [health issues] you could think of at 19 and 20 years old,” says Fisher, who graduated in May from the Duke Global Health Institute’s Master of Science in Global Health program. “It was a period of me being transferred from doctor to doctor. I tried acupuncture, homeopathy. I tried everything.”
After four years of consulting specialists across the country, a holistic doctor discovered the root of the problem. Fisher, who had spent a year after high school teaching English in rural Thailand, had contracted parasites from drinking unclean water. The diagnosis was a relief, but the ordeal showed Fisher how fractured healthcare can be. Doctors were too often looking for “a quick fix,” she says, and not taking time to see the whole picture.
The experience is at the heart of Fisher’s desire to learn more about global and public health. “We are complex organisms that need to be looked at for the whole,” she explains. “In this modern world, a lot of us are at the mercy of [health] systems that operate as if everything is black and white. A ‘one size fits all’ approach to health is not acceptable.”
At DGHI, Fisher worked with the Healthy Eating Research (HER) program, completing her thesis research on the impact of beverages that use non-sugar sweeteners on the health of adolescents. Companies have marketed food and veberages that contain non-sugar sweeteners such as Stevia as healthier alternatives to sugar, but research has not backed up those claims. In 2023, the World Health Organization advised about an increased risk of Type II diabetes from long-term use of sugar substitutes.
Fisher’s research found that children who consumed beverages with non-sugar sweeteners had nearly identical body mass index measurements to those drinking sugary beverages ,and in some cases their BMI averages were higher. “There were no groups that had any health outcomes improve from using non-sugar sweeteners,” she says.
The study, which was advised by Mary Story, a professor of global health and family medicine who directs the HER program, shows the importance of accurate information in an industry where nutritional claims are driven more by profit than health. “Misinformation is difficult to combat no matter what field you’re in,” says Fisher.
Fisher’s experience in Thailand also influenced her interest in food and nutrition. One in 10 children under the age of five in the Asian country experience severe food poverty, according to UNICEF Thailand.
“Although the kids were hungry for education, if they’re not fed, they don’t have the energy to learn or reach their goals,” she says. “That started my interests in nutrition as a way to empower and help them meet their health goals so they can succeed in life.”
Fisher wants her next career role to combine public health education and consulting. Thinking back to her own experiences struggling with an unknown health issue, she says knowledge helped her better advocate for herself, and she wants to give that same advantage to others.
“Why would we want to be victims to disease and not healthy?” Fisher says. “Health is power and gives you autonomy. I want to give people the knowledge and resources to take their health into their own hands."
