Does Food System Transition Need Public Health Nutrition Abolition
Monday 5th December 2022, 4.30-6.00 pm (UK time),
hosted by the 'Healthy Food' theme of Warwick University's Food GRP
Dr Lucy Aphramor
Associate Professor Gender, Power and the Right to Food
Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience Coventry University
Moderated by Rosemary Collier (Life Sciences)
Mainstream nutrition messages reproduce neoliberal ideas about ‘health’ as a property that is individually achieved. This – colonial - narrative relies on a liberal humanist construct of the body where the isolated, self-interested citizen has meaningful dietary options. In cases of diet-related disease, imprudent choice is the problem and behaviour change the remedy. Food is commodified as a vessel for nutrient transfer, the body functions as a calorie burning machine and disability, poverty and other realities that complicate the model are sidelined. Clearly, this theory has serious limitations. Not least, it ignores structural influences on public health and, within this, externalizes health hazards experienced by farmers, packers, catering staff and other food workers due to toxic substances, working and living conditions, low pay, migration issues and more.
Public health messages need to make a radical departure from the paternalistic, nonsensical, ableist, and anti-fat injunction to ‘eat less, move more’ if they are to align with, and prefigure, health justice and food sovereignty.
In this talk I explore concepts I have found useful in aligning my dietetic practice with agroecological transition, share mistakes I have made, and offer ideas for translating theory into practice.
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