Alumni Spotlight: Zachary Levine ('09)
While building healthy food, fitness and wellness retail brands in New York and San Francisco, Zach Levine (HS ’09), noticed something wasn’t working about healthcare. “As I spent more time in the health and wellness space I realized consumers were interacting with alternative medicine and wellness services on a daily and weekly basis but had virtually no touchpoints with traditional primary care. As I dug deeper, I started to realize how broken our healthcare system had become and how polarizing and disjointed many of our solutions were.... What if [healthcare] wasn’t an either/or but a both/and?” he said. “We’re seeing the same thing occur with capital investments in telehealth-only or mental health-only businesses. It’s not that these solutions can’t be helpful; it’s that they are not truly addressing Whole-Person Health.”
So he decided to do something about it. Wholesome Roots Health, which Zach started in February 2021 with co-founder Geoffrey Talis (MS, MD), is dedicated to blending lifestyle medicine with traditional primary care and mental health services, treating the mind, body, and spirit collectively with individual care and attention.
It’s a community-centered, membership-based primary care platform focused on blending and streamlining care for every person as an entire whole. It’s care for the mind (therapy, support groups, education), body (primary care, chiropractic, and nutrition), and spirit (lifestyle, meditation, and creative expression).
At Wholesome Roots Health, a member’s journey is uniquely based on their case, and includes facets from functional medicine as well as homeopathy. One struggling with chronic stress might take supplements for body wellness, get acupuncture and chiropractic intervention, life coaching sessions, see a therapist, receive a heart rate monitor with data tracked in the Wholesome Roots app, and see a functional doctor. Other suggestions might include meditation practice, classes to boost creativity, and medication as needed.
“The past year and a half has been an incredibly challenging time for so many of us but it has also been a time of deep reflection—a narrowing in on what we truly value for ourselves, for our families, and for our communities,” Zach says. “[At Wholesome Roots Health], we focus deeply on asking the right questions, allowing our members to feel heard and supported, and providing evidence-based alternative and conventional treatment recommendations that align with each members’ values and needs. I couldn't think of a more valuable use of my time.”
Zach, who was recently married over the summer by Heschel founder Peter Geffen, has many other exciting developments in the works. Wholesome Roots is launching virtually in April 2022, with its first in-person location opening in summer 2022, and a second in winter 2022. The brick and mortar spaces will offer treatment rooms, communal spaces, complimentary tea, coffee, and snacks, aromatherapy, traction tables and therabody devices, and select wellness products for purchase. For updates and more information, visit https://wholesomerootshealth.com/.
