Equity and Justice in Dietetics with Safeena Jabar & Gurneet Dhami

In this episode, Safeena and Gurneet share what justice means to them, how privilege can manifest in health care, ‘calling in’ Dietitians of Canada, their hopes for greater diversity within the profession, the extension of Diversify Dietetics USA into Canada, the need for new HAES and Weight-Inclusive frameworks to ensure consideration of race, ethnicity and culture and how we can begin to make our practice more inclusive – right now!

On this important episode of The Mindful Dietitian, Fi chats to Safeena Jabar and Gurneet K. Dhami, Dietetic Students and RD’s-to-be based in Canada, we hear;

• What justice means to Gurneet; from what it is to fit in, to the lack of diversity in dietetics and questioning; why are these conversations being centred now?
• What justice means to Safeena; from being asked the hard questions, to her lived experience, and understanding; that with our personal privileges, comes power.
• Gurneet and Safenna step us through the origins, definitions and meaning behind the term; white privilege, and ways privilege can manifest in health care. 
• ‘Calling in’ Dietitians of Canada;
  • Safeena and Gurneet share how their cowritten statement to Dietitians Canada came about and the current developments brought about by it. 
  • Their hopes for how the statement might start a shift towards racial and ethnical diversity within the dietetic profession.
  • How in response to the statement, extensions of diverse groups and communities have been built and why we need to power groups and movements that are already happening, rather than reinventing the wheel.
• HAES and Weight Inclusive Practice and the ways in which we are not including race and culture into the framework;
  • Safeena shares her experience finding HAES and weight inclusive practice and her difficulty and discomfort in trying to reconcile HAES with her culture identity. She also shares how a new HAES framework can become more inclusive and applicable to all different types of people.
  • Gurneet shares her experience learning about HAES, the challenge of putting it into practice (as it stands) with a consideration for culture and race and why we need to understand all the intersections at play. She also shares the need to meet clients where they are at to ensure client-centred care and why we need to continue to have these messy and mucky conversations.
• In finishing up, Safeena and Gurneet graciously offer us additional ways in which we can begin to enhance our practice to ensure it is truly inclusive.

As mentioned in the podcast:

• Safeena Jabar - IGTV unpacking privilege
• Dietitians of Canada
• Diversify Dietetics 
• Diversify Dietetics Canada Chapter
• Book: White Fragility - Why it's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• Safura Syed, MSc. Applied Human Nutrition (c) and Dietetic Intern
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, Civil rights advocate 
• Stephanie Yeboah, author, content creator, lifestyle and fashion blogger 
• Hunter Shackelford 
• Sonya Renee Taylor 
• Sabrina Strings, author of fearing the black body
• The Rosy Nutritionist, by Rosie Mensah
• Nutrition Positive, by Julia Lévy-Ndejuru 

Exercises to work through our privilege:

• Flower power exercise:  http://lgbtq2stoolkit.learningcommunity.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/flower-power-exercise.pdf

• Peggy McIntosh - White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf

• Peggy McIntosh - Extending the Knapsack: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02703149.2015.1059195

• Checking Your Privilege with the Social Determinants of Health: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAx8TC6AKaR/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

• Social Location Wheel Exercise: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/sample-activities/social-identity-wheel/

 

Weight inclusive RDs that are incorporating justice into their practice:

• Vincci Tsui (vinccird): http://vinccitsui.com/
• Grace Wong: https://www.facebook.com/gracewongrd/
• Rosie Mensah (@therosienutritionist): https://therosienutritionist.com/
• Jessica Wilson (@jessicawilson.msrd): www.jessicawilsonmsrd.com
• Christyna Johnson (@encouragingdietitian)

 

 

About Safeena Jabar:

Safeena Jabar is a dietetic intern completing her Master’s degree in Nutrition Communication at Ryerson University in Toronto. After a turbulent time navigating nutrition information in her adolescence, Safeena committed to becoming a Registered Dietitian in order to gain a deeper, scientific understanding of nutrition and the body. She aims to provide a safe space for clients to discuss their goals and concerns while dispelling common myths. She is passionate about working with people to improve and maintain their wellness from an anti-diet, Health At Every Size®-informed approach. Safeena has a special interest in the impact of food on wellbeing based on her knowledge of complex historical and institutional factors that have shaped our food landscape. Health and social inequities persist through these systems, so Safeena is advocating for change through educating and empowering her fellow health care practitioners, local communities, and national organizations to ensure a future where all people have equitable access to appropriate healthcare.

 

About Gurneet Kaur Dhami

Gurneet Kaur Dhami is a South Asian, Sikh woman travelling between Toronto to Halifax, where she is completing an MSc in Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University. Her emerging thesis work focuses on the experiences of racialized dietitians navigating dietetics using Critical Race Theory. Gurneet is both a researcher and social activist, as she partakes in food justice work by working on food security projects and being involved in the student food movement. As a youth leader she hopes to further dialogue on race, reconciliation and equity beyond our kitchens t