Tanzania Brown is a plus-size model and body-positivity influencer on Instagram.
But just as the San Diego model’s career started taking off, her health started falling apart.
Extreme bouts of sleep apnea had her scared. And the solution, her doctors told her, was to lose weight quickly.
In a new episode of the KPBS and PRX border podcast, “Port of Entry,” we continue our series on medical tourism and follow Brown’s weight-loss journey, which takes her across the U.S.-Mexico border and into Tijuana where she undergoes bariatric surgery. Many people like Brown turn to Mexico for more affordable medical procedures and medicine.
There are plenty of horror stories about people who die while undergoing weight loss surgery in Mexico. In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even issued a travel warning, notifying the public that 11 Americans who traveled to Tijuana hospitals for weight-loss surgery had become infected with drug-resistant infections.
But Brown is extremely happy with her results. The only problem now is her fear of coming out about her procedure to her body-positivity community, an online group of people who advocate for body acceptance and tend to look down on diet culture and weight-loss surgery.
