key: cord-1012785-f8uj2nr6
authors: Koch, Pamela
title: Forging the Future of Food and Nutrition Education
date: 2020-08-06
journal: J Nutr Educ Behav
DOI: 10.1016/j.jneb.2020.06.004
sha: 8205f2cbae7c0c7968faf81dd3e2e5abf23d920b
doc_id: 1012785
cord_uid: f8uj2nr6

nan

In her final JNEB presidential editorial, Jennifer Wilkins described how the COVID-19 pandemic presents challenges and opportunities. 1 As I write this in early June, both the pandemic and protests for racial justice dominate the news. These crises have exacerbated the challenges we already faced: ecological threats on a planetary scale, the fragility of centralized and concentrated food systems, racial inequities in food access and health, and a food supply dominated by ultra-processed foods.

Times of disruption are moments to reflect, redirect, and rebuild. Food and nutrition education can empower people to demand healthy, just, and sustainable food by disrupting the status quo. Let's roll up our sleeves and forge the future by elevating what I am calling the 5Rs of food and nutrition education: richness, resolve, recognition, relevance, and resilience.

The Program in Nutrition at Teachers College, Columbia University proudly professes that we cover everything "from the farm to the fat cell." That breadth beautifully describes the richness of our field. For example, we need to understand how different farming systems impact public and planetary health, 2 and how water systems connect to human health. 3 We need to acknowledge that black and indigenous people have had their farmland unjustly taken from them and support reparations. 4 We need to address food injustice. 5 With a broad focus for food and nutrition education we can be are part of creating a rightsbased approach to food security to provide adequate, nourishing food and equitable access for everyone. 6 

We need to bring more racial and ethnic diversity to our mostly white profession and address the systemic barriers that students of ethnic minorities face to accessing education and professional opportunities. 7 Nutrition educators, most of whom are white, need to learn how our cultural frame of reference influences our practice, research questions and methods, and advocacy. With a greater deeper cultural self-awareness, we can resolve as a Society to move beyond seeing white culture as the assumed norm against which other cultures are compared. 8 

We recognize that nutrition education is complicated by myriad cultural, community, and societal aspects of humans' lives. This complexity also makes our field dynamic and exciting. We need to faithfully incorporate intra-and interpersonal factors, racial equity, food system sustainability, as well as policy, systems, and environmental influences into all of our research, policy, and practice. 2,8−10

The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the importance of healthy diets in fighting infectious diseases and preventing chronic diseases, now referred to as underlying conditions. 11, 12 Nutrition educators are at the forefront of helping people achieve healthy diets. Yet, the 2020 −2030 Strategic Plan for NIH Nutrition Research is silent on funding for the effectiveness of nutrition education. 13 We need louder and clearer voices to elevate the critical role of nutrition education research, policy, and practice.

Nutrition educators have grit. We are flexible. We adapt. We can make this time of upheaval change into an opportunity by forging new directions for the future of our field, and we can do it together.

I am honored to be SNEB's President for the next year and I am excited to work with you.

Challenges and opportunities created by the COVID-19 pandemic

Position of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior: the importance of including environmental sustainability in dietary guidance

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: food and water safety

International Commission of Jurists. The Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Gross Human Rights Violations: A Practitioners' Guide

What is it? Where has it been? Where is it going?

Beyond food security to realizing food rights in the US

Diversity and equity in dietetics and undergraduate nutrition education in Manitoba

Beyond the melting pot and salad bowl views of cultural diversity: advancing cultural diversity education of nutrition educators

Understanding system-level intervention points to support school food and nutrition policy implementation in Nova Scotia

Identifying the effects of environmental and policy change interventions on healthy eating

Food as medicine: a possible preventive measure against coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

Individual risk management strategy and potential therapeutic options for the COVID-19 pandemic

NIH Nutrition Research Taskforce. 2020−2030 Strategic Plan for NIH Nutrition Research. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health