From tensions to transformation: Teaching food systems in a graduate dietetics course

Dietitians are deeply embedded within food systems, so food systems concepts are becoming an essential component of dietetic education in Canada. Yet how can we, as educators, better prepare future dietitians to embrace the complexity of food systems and be forces of change towards equity? In an effort to explore this question in a practical way, we integrated food systems concepts into a mandatory course of a public health graduate dietetics program. This field report shares our experiences teaching food systems over five years based on our notes kept, student feedback, and course evaluations. Our learnings have been in three key areas: intentions, facilitation, and tensions. We recognized that teaching about food systems is value-laden. Hence we have been explicit with the students about our positionality and our intentions in designing the course, partly to meet the management of food systems competency requirements, but also to stimulate thinking about alternative options for purpose, structures, and processes in food systems. Our facilitation approaches aimed to foster a critical consciousness towards social justice and systems change. Using teaching and evaluation methods such as experiential learning, community projects, and reflection assignments, students have encountered the complexity of food systems and the challenges-opportunities they pose. As educators, we have grappled with the tensions of challenging dominant positivist discourses in public health nutrition. Politicized topics such as migrant farm-worker regimes, industrial food production, regulation of food marketing, and mitigation of the impact of colonization have generated debates in the classroom about the role and scope of dietetic practice. Most students have situated themselves more explicitly within a food system, and some began to question hidden structures of power. While it remains challenging to address this breadth within the constraints of one course, we believe it worthwhile to model and stimulate critical reflexivity with the next generation of dietitians as critical food learners-teachers themselves. Even though the course is no longer offered using this food systems approach, course components can be integrated throughout the dietetic curriculum.

Enhancing Response Ability: Dietetics as a Vehicle for Social Justice—A Primer

Recent world events have shone a spotlight on the social and structural injustices that impact the lives, health, and well-being of individuals and communities under threat. Dietitians should be well positioned to play a role in redressing injustice through their individual and collective “response abilities”, that is, the combination of responsibility for and ability to be responsive to such injustices due to the varying privilege and power that dietitians have. However, recent research shows that dietitians report a lack of knowledge, skill, and confidence to take on such roles, and that dietetic education includes little knowledge- or skill-based learning that might prepare dietitians to do so. This primer aims to introduce readers to concepts that are fundamental to socially just dietetics practice, including privilege, structural competence, critical reflexivity, critical humility, and critical praxis. We assert that when implemented into practice and used to inform advocacy and activism these concepts enhance dietitians’ individual and collective response ability to redress injustice.

Opening the door to dialogue: Experiences from equity-seeking students in dietetic education

Lack of diversity and barriers persist for marginalized students both when entering the dietetic profession and during their education. Through generative dialogue, as four dietitians in Canada, we discussed and reflected on our experiences in dietetic education and training. Our dialogue generated three themes: barriers, belonging, and resilience. We concluded by providing key recommendations for dietetic educators to support the learning of students from marginalized communities and call for difficult conversations about social justice in dietetic education.

Longing for Recognition: The Joys, Complexities, and Contradictions of Practicing Dietetics

Longing for Recognition offers a radical new way of understanding nutritional health practices. In contemporary food culture, the work of dietitians has accrued new and urgent meaning, and Longing for Recognition is addressed to that group of practitioners. The author, herself a dietitian, crafts an autoethnographic fiction that presents a critical and thought-provoking argument for a more self-reflexive, relational, and embodied profession. Her compelling narrative draws the reader into its timely call for rethinking what counts as knowledge in dietetic education. Longing for Recognition will be invaluable for dietitians and other health care professionals who wish to enhance their practice as one that considers first and foremost what it means to be human. [Abstract information retrieved on Nov. 21, 2017 from http://www.ryerson.ca/~jgingras/longingforrecognition.htm]

Social Justice and Dietetic Education: Are We Preparing Practitioners to Lead?

Purpose: To explore dietetic practitioners’ perceptions of their education and training in the knowledge, skills, and confidence to understand social justice issues and to engage in socially just dietetic practice and social justice advocacy. Methods: An online semi-qualitative survey sent to Canadian dietitians. Results: Most respondents (n = 264; 81.5%) felt that knowledge- and skill-based learning about social justice and social justice advocacy should be a part of dietetic education and training. Reasons given by respondents for the importance of social justice learning include: client-centred care and reflexive practice, effecting change to the social and structural determinants of health, preventing dietitian burnout, and relevance of the profession. Yet, over half of respondents either strongly disagreed or disagreed that they were adequately prepared with the knowledge (n = 186; 57.4%), skills (n = 195; 60.2%), or confidence (n = 196; 60.5%) to engage in advocacy related to social justice concerns. Some questioned the practicality of adding social justice learning via additional courses to already full programs, while others proposed infusing a social justice lens across dietetic education and practice areas. Conclusions: Dietetic education and training must do more to prepare dietitians to answer calls for dietitians to engage in social justice issues through practice and advocacy.

Exploring Social Justice Advocacy in Dietetic Education: A Content Analysis

Purpose: To explore the extent to which knowledge- and skill-based learning regarding social justice and/or social justice advocacy is included in the course descriptions of required courses of accredited, English-speaking dietitian training programs in Canada. Methods: This study is a mixed-methods content analysis of required course descriptions sampled from university academic calendars for accredited, English-speaking dietitian training programs across Canada. Results: Quantitative analysis showed that required course descriptions (n = 403) included few instances of social justice-related terminology (n = 63). Two themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: competing conceptualizations of social issues and dietitians’ roles; prioritization of science-based knowledge and ways of knowing. Conclusions: Accredited, English-speaking dietitian training programs in Canada appear to include little knowledge- or skill-based learning regarding social justice issues and advocacy. Supporting future dietitians to pursue leadership roles in redressing social injustices and socially just dietetic practice may require more explicit education and training about social justice issues and advocacy skills.