Nutrition Month: How Did We Get Here?
Written by Erin Nelson, RD
As a dietitian, I often find people are not sure what it is that I do. And it is no wonder! Dietitians practice in such a wide variety of settings and within that, we all practice slightly differently than the next person. This is what makes it difficult to articulate a cohesive definition of what it is that we do. So I’m going to give it a whirl: A dietitian is a regulated health professional that takes up-to-date scientific information and filters it through to our clients in an easy to understand way. The overall goal is to use this information to help enhance the lives of our clients.
Why am I bringing up the role of a dietitian? Because March is nutrition month, and every year there is a team of people that put together a great theme that is designed to bring awareness to the role of nutrition and, specifically the role a dietitian can play in the lives of the people we see. This role is so important, and the awareness is so needed in a time where nutrition advice can literally come from anywhere and it is getting harder and harder to tell the legitimacy of the information we are receiving. The problem for me is that there seems to be something missing, like we are only scratching the surface of what we should really be talking about. The decision to write a post highlighting nutrition month was a hard decision for me and one that I have been thinking about for months now. Writing a post talking about the benefits of nutrition just didn’t sit well with me, and then I figured out why: How can we begin to raise awareness of the nutrition profession and advocate for continued growth in our community if we are not first acknowledging how we got here? How can we highlight the healing we do without also reflecting on and acknowledging the harm done?
Before we go any further, I feel that I need to first acknowledge my privilege in this world. I am a university educated, cis, white, able-bodied, straight-sized, heterosexual female. I will do my very best for the duration of this article to include as many viewpoints as I can AND I am still learning (and unlearning) how to navigate from a place of inclusivity, given my immense privilege. I am open to any and all feedback, always.
The field of nutrition science as we know it is really just at its beginning stages and started with single nutrient isolation at the turn of the 20th century (1). Recommended daily allowances were in the midst of being developed for all macro and micronutrients between 1930 and 1950 in response to the problem of hunger and malnutrition during and after World War II. Here in Canada, during that same time a couple of large cohort studies began in Northern Manitoba funded jointly by Indian Affairs, Milbank Memorial Fund, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Hudson’s Bay Company to “demonstrate the effects of nutritional interventions into the diet of an already malnourished population” of Indigenous people (2). The average diet in these Indigenous Communities provided about 1470 calories per day, 100 calories less than the ground-breaking study being conducted at roughly the same time and is now widely known as the Minnesota Starvation experiment. Instead of providing relief food for these malnourished communities, which was voiced as a solution by more than one party, nutrition experts opted to conduct a study to determine how individual nutrient supplementation affected the health of their “participants”. Any aim documented by researchers to increase the food supply to malnourished Indigenous populations was done so in the context of motivation towards colonial ends. Studies similar to these, where researchers had their sights set on climbing the political ladder by learning more about the connection between malnutrition and poor health outcomes eventually moved into residential schools, where malnutrition was also prevalent due to limited and often spoiled, inedible food supplied by the Canadian Government.
Why is talking about and acknowledging these harms so important? Well, there are a few reasons: The first is, as I alluded to above, we will not be able to stop the harm caused without acknowledging and having some level of understanding and acceptance that it happened and is continuing to happen; The second reason is because everyone of us is a product of our history, including this profession. The nutrition profession is still feeling the effects and reaping the benefits of the enormous and involuntary contribution of the Indigenous people in Canada, while the Indigenous population continue to live with the harmful effects of that time in our history.
We now know from a collection of studies on the effects of famine and calorie restriction from around the world, including those conducted in our Indigenous population here in Canada, there is a greater prevalence of chronic diseases in these populations. These chronic diseases include type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, and hypertension, not to mention the greater impact on mental health. These increased risk factors have also been shown to extend to the children and even the grandchildren of people who survived a famine (3). This is direct evidence that our past has an impact on the present and future of the nutrition profession.
The third reason of importance I see is that we have an obligation to understand as many issues as we can that may show up silently with our clients, so we can more fully provide support in the ways they need. As Dietitians, we see people every day that live with these chronic conditions and having a better, more holistic understanding of how our history may have affected the outcome of being diagnosed with any condition, will only allow us to do our jobs more fully, with more compassion and understanding, without stigma and judgment.
The nutrition profession is still in its infancy. This means that a lot has been discovered in a very short period of time, and we are still learning the impact, ramifications and toll the pursuit of that knowledge has left. The nutrition profession is still new and that is so exciting because we have a chance to do it differently moving forward. We are not so tied to existing methodologies as some older science professions. We have the chance to do it differently but only if we can acknowledge the reasons this is necessary; to be methodical and intentional moving forward because we do not want to continue to cause the same harm. I love this profession. I love that nutrition has the potential to make such a huge impact on people’s lives. It is out of this love that I feel the need to hold the nutrition profession accountable. Because I believe food has the potential for great healing if we can first acknowledge our part in the harm.
Note: The overview I provided was a simplified version of only a fraction of the information about a multifaceted and complex issue. To learn more about the history of the nutrition profession in Canada, here are a few links that I have referenced in this article:
1 https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/361/bmj.k2392/F1.large.jpg?width=800&height=600
2 https://fns.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/AdministeringSocialScience.mosby_.pdf
