Social Justice, Health Equity, and Advocacy: What Are Our Roles?

Abstract

The aims of this chapter are:

Appendices

Assignments

• 1. Based on this chapter and on your own experience, how would you define social justice and health equity from a nutrition perspective? What principles, knowledge, skills, and actions might be necessary to support dietitians’ roles in social justice advocacy?

• 2. Think about a social justice or equity issue that is relevant to the community in which you live. Reflect on how and why this issue might be of concern for dietitians. How might this issue impact community members’ ability to access safe, affordable food in a dignified and sustainable way? How might this issue impact people’s nutritional, cultural, emotional, social, psychological, and spiritual health? What might you do as a future or current dietitian to get involved in your community to address this issue?

• 3. Advocacy doesn’t have to take a lot of time or resources to effect change. One small action that you can take to effect change is writing a letter to a local, provincial, regional, or national elected official on an issue you care about. Remember to identify and properly address the most appropriate individual for the issue, be cordial, and be sure to ask for the specific change you want to see happen to address this issue.

Definition of Keywords and Terms

Activism:

Direct action, such as protests, demonstrations, or acts of civil disobedience, aimed at bringing about social or political change.

Advocacy:

Actions by individuals, groups, or organizations that aim to influence or create change regarding an issue by raising awareness, building networks, and fostering support by others.

Classism:

Classism is a form of systemic oppression based on a persons’ or groups’ perceived socio-economic class which comprises a complex mix of material wealth and social status, as well as education, customs, attitudes, behaviours, values, and appearance. Class-based oppression is also associated with class privilege for those of higher material wealth and social status. Classism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as racism and sexism, to inform an individuals’ or groups’ social standing along multiple axes (i.e. race, gender, class).

Colonialism:

Colonialism is an ongoing process whereby one group of people subjugates and exploits another group of people through overt and covert policies and practices including war, annexing land, and constructing the subjugated group as inferior and deserving or in need of the colonizing groups’ control.

Health equity:

Like social justice, health equity is multifaceted but in essence describes the conceptualization of social justice vis a vis health.

Power-related diseases/illness:

Aphramor (2016) describes power-related illnesses as health and nutrition problems that are largely the result of social injustice rather than inherent deficits among clients and their communities but that are often understood and acted upon, such as through health promotion and nutrition education efforts, to be the result of individuals’ poor choices.

Racism:

Racism is a form of systemic oppression based on the belief that race is a biological characteristic and that some races are innately inferior. Racism is also associated with race-based privilege, namely, white privilege, whereby white people are afforded unearned or undue status in society. Racism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as classism and sexism, to inform an individuals’ or groups’ social standing along multiple axes (i.e. race, gender, class).

Sexism:

Sexism is a form of system oppression that devalues individuals, groups, knowledge, practices, and ways of being that are associated with femininity. Sexism is also associated with gender-based privilege, namely, male privilege. Sexism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as classism and racism, to inform an individuals’ or groups’ social standing along multiple axes (i.e. race, gender, class).

Social justice:

Although defined in various ways, at its core, social justice describes a state of social, structural, environmental, and political fairness that promotes equitable distribution of material and representational power and that redresses historical injustices.

Structural competence:

Structural competence describes knowledge and skill-based knowledge on how to redress structural inequities such as those caused by gender-, race-, and class-based oppression.

How This Chapter Addresses the Critical Dietetic Framework

This chapter addresses all of the elements of the critical dietetic framework. The first and third elements of the critical dietetic framework are addressed in this chapter which draws on multi- and transdisciplinary literature, as well as interviews with individuals whose work is informed by variously situated perspectives including academic, performance poet, dietitian, community activist, eating disorder survivor, and person of colour, to understand elaborate meanings of social justice and health equity. One of the core concepts of this chapter is that social justice and health equity require reflexive engagement to work through the complex and sometimes contradictory, political commitments of these concepts. The fourth element of the critical dietetic framework is addressed by another key concern of this chapter. That is, dietitians could and should play a central role as advocates and activists in advancing social justice through social and political change.