Jennifer Ashton

Jennifer Lee Garfein Ashton (born April 23, 1969) is a physician, author, and television correspondent. She is chief health and medical editor and chief medical correspondent for ABC News and Good Morning America, chief women's health correspondent for The Dr. Oz Show, and a columnist for Cosmopolitan Magazine. Dr. Ashton is also a regular contributor to the ABC daytime program GMA3: What You Need to Know. She is also a frequent guest speaker and moderator for events raising awareness of women's health issues.

Dr. Jennifer Lee Ashton, an American doctor working at a UN Medical Facility is pictured during a meeting with Doctor Colonel Itzik Kryce, commander of the Israel Defense Forces field hospital in Haiti.

Quotes

• “My philosophy is to be honest. It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were before, improving yourself. Even baby steps can be the difference in improving your health.”
• “The magazine will provide expert opinions and interpretations that readers can continue to refer to and have access to at the palm of their hands. I see this magazine as a real patient encounter where I can be their personal expert on issues that really matter.”
• “There is so much stigma about mental health as well as blame. I felt that blame when my ex-husband passed.”
• “A holistic approach is essential in addressing anxiety, stress, and depression. Connecting the dots between mental health and physical health is a must. One cannot have a healthy body without a healthy mind, and vice versa.”
• “The pandemic amplified the interest and need for medical and nutritional information, and this is especially true for women. Women are demanding more access to this information from credible sources, and this needs to be presented and analyzed clearly for the lay public.”
• “Funding is critical to advance women’s health. We cannot move the needle on women’s health without money. Men must also be involved in that conversation in an equal way”.
  • ABC’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton Launches New Magazine ‘Better’ Forbes (June 7, 2023)
• Roughly every decade there is a change in hair," Ashton said, adding, "With age, all of us will have a change in our hair."
• "Aggressive color, color process or heat process on a long-term basis is absolutely going to damage hair. That's a fact," Ashton said. "So, it's a matter of is it worth it? How much are you going to damage it, and for how long?"
• "The earlier we all prioritize the health and well-being of our hair, the better [it] will be across our lifetime,
• "Due to a variety of factors, hair takes a hit," Ashton said of the perimenopause and menopause phases. "It grows less. It gets thinner. It's more vulnerable and more delicate and it can lose some of its luster."
• "It's something that almost every woman, if she's being honest, will deal with basically from menopause on."
• "That means making sure your diet is good, making sure that you're getting enough protein, that you're getting enough zinc, that you're getting enough folic acid, all of those are important for hair growth," she said, adding, "Your styling and grooming habits are incredibly important."
• I protect my hair as much as possible," she said. "I don't think in a given week, I'm ever fully blowing out my hair. I'm either letting it air-dry naturally if it's a weekend, or I'm coming in with it wet for work and I'm just having the front blown out and I put the faux-ponytail on so that it's reasonably presentable for TV."
• "be gentle."
• "Be kind and gentle and patient with yourself as an older woman," she said. "Don't only be gentle with yourself figuratively, but literally. You can't do the same heat, the same pulling, the same processing and styling as a woman who is middle-aged."
• "That doesn't mean [hair] still can't be fabulous. It just means it requires a different approach."
• "Experiment with different types of things, whether they are fun hats or scarves or even wigs,"
  • Doctor shares tips on how to care for your hair as you age ABC News (November10, 2023)