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From SNEB| Volume 52, ISSUE 12, P1085-1086, December 2020

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Looking Back and Moving Forward: SNEB Commitment to Embracing Racial Equity and Social Justice

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2020.10.009
Looking Back and Moving Forward: SNEB Commitment to Embracing Racial Equity and Social Justice
Next ArticleOptimizing Lessons Learned from COVID-19’s Effects on School Nutrition Programs
      Unlabelled image
      As 2020 closes, Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) members will remember a year unlike any other. Frie nds, relatives, or colleagues may be included in the sobering statistics ofmore than 219,000 lives lost to COVID-19.

      Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. Coronavirus resource center. 2020. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

      We have faced significant disruptions in our personal, political, economic, social, and professional ways of thinking and being. From food justice, COVID-19 justice, racial justice, climate justice, to policing justice, this year has amplified inequities routinely experienced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
      Nutrition professionals are well aware of food, health, and wealth disparities that affect our clients and communities. We know BIPOC have higher rates of food insecurity than non-Hispanic White people.
      • Odoms-Young A
      • Bruce MA
      Examining the impact of structural racism on food insecurity: implications for addressing racial/ethnic disparities.
      Fam Community Health. 2018; 41: S3-S6
      ,
      • Coleman-Jensen A
      • Rabbitt MP
      • Gregory CA
      • Singh A
      Household Food Security in the United States in 2019. ERR-275.
      US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Washington, DC2020
      https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=99281
      Emergent COVID-19 data indicates food insecurity
      • Bauer L
      • Broady K
      • Edelberg W
      • O'Donnell J
      Ten Facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy.
      The Hamilton Project. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC2020
      https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/
      and morbidity and mortality are likewise disproportionately affecting BIPOC populations.

      American Public Media (APM) Research Lab Staff. The color of coronavirus: COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity in the US. 2020.https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race. Accessed October 16, 2020.

      ,

      Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Strategies for reducing health disparities. 2016.https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/strategies2016/index.html. Accessed October 15, 2020.

      At this moment in history, nutrition professionals are uniquely poised to work towards racially equitable andjust food systems by strategically re-imagining a new normal.

      Common Ground Committee. The time is now: we stand in solidarity with the urgent work of healing racism.https://commongroundcommittee.org/black-lives-matter/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

      We know that the answers lie not only in addressing the immediate issue of household hunger and diet-related disease. Systemically addressing poverty through establishing living wages for all, and eliminating opportunity, health, and wealth disparities between genders and between non-Hispanic White people and BIPOC would structurally advance equity practices.
      • Williams D
      • Lawrence J
      • Davis B
      Racism and Health: evidence and needed research.
      Annu Rev Public Health. 2019; 40: 105-125
      ,
      • Hardy B
      • Logan T
      Racial Economic Inequality Amid the COVID-19 Crisis.
      The Hamilton Project. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC2020
      https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/EA_HardyLogan_LO_8.12.pdf
      How will we leverage current momentum to explicitly address race and racism in our work? The SNEB leadership has recognized its role.
      • Koch P
      Forging the future of food and nutrition education.
      J Nutr Educ Behav. 2020; 52: 755-756
      In response to police injustice experienced by the BIPOC community, the SNEB Board issued a statement to end racism and challenge nutrition organizations and professionals to be part of the solution.
      • Koch P
      Forging the future of food and nutrition education.
      J Nutr Educ Behav. 2020; 52: 755-756
      “SNEB can play a critical role in exposing and addressing food injustices and racial disparities in the food system” by promoting empowering communities to change their local food systems, demand routine access to healthy food for all, and dismantle food-related discrimination in our institutions, at the local, state, tribal, and national level.

      Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB): Statement on addressing racial injustice. 2020.https://www.sneb.org/blog/2020/06/17/general/the-society-for-nutrition-education-and-behavior-sneb-statement-on-addressing-racial-injustice/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

      The SNEB board members committed to participate in a racial equity training series, modeled after the Food Solutions New England 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge.

      Food Solutions New England. 21-day racial equity habit building challenge. 2020.https://foodsolutionsne.org/21-day-racial-equity-habit-building-challenge/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

      Each spring, this Challenge provides open access to readings and resources that deeply examine racism and also identify strategies for dismantling racism in our food system. Individuals and organizations from across sectors and the country commit to “Learn, Reflect and Act” as they build skill and will for food system transformation. The Food Systems Educators Community of Practice (CoP), sponsored by Columbia University, Institute of Human Nutrition, is another option for food system educators to train ourselves and those we teach to address racism. A subgroup of the CoP recently published a paper calling for equity, especially racial equity, to be a standard competency in food system program content and practice.
      • Valley W
      • Anderson M
      • Tichenor-Blackstone N
      • et al.
      Towards an equity competency model for sustainable food systems education program.
      Elem Sci Anth. 2020; 8: 33
      Racism and the related economic and health disparities are human-made conditions. The solutions are within our reach given the political will to structurally and systemically address them. As educators and practitioners, we shape present and future generations. This is the time; this is our charge.“Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.” ― Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

      References

      1. Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. Coronavirus resource center. 2020. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

        View in Article
        • Odoms-Young A
        • Bruce MA
        Examining the impact of structural racism on food insecurity: implications for addressing racial/ethnic disparities.
        Fam Community Health. 2018; 41: S3-S6
        View in Article
        • Coleman-Jensen A
        • Rabbitt MP
        • Gregory CA
        • Singh A
        Household Food Security in the United States in 2019. ERR-275.
        US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Washington, DC2020
        https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=99281
        (Accessed October 16, 2020)
        View in Article
        • Bauer L
        • Broady K
        • Edelberg W
        • O'Donnell J
        Ten Facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy.
        The Hamilton Project. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC2020
        https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/
        (Accessed September 17, 2020)
        View in Article

      5. American Public Media (APM) Research Lab Staff. The color of coronavirus: COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity in the US. 2020.https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race. Accessed October 16, 2020.

        View in Article

      6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Strategies for reducing health disparities. 2016.https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/strategies2016/index.html. Accessed October 15, 2020.

        View in Article

      7. Common Ground Committee. The time is now: we stand in solidarity with the urgent work of healing racism.https://commongroundcommittee.org/black-lives-matter/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

        View in Article
        • Williams D
        • Lawrence J
        • Davis B
        Racism and Health: evidence and needed research.
        Annu Rev Public Health. 2019; 40: 105-125
        View in Article
        • Hardy B
        • Logan T
        Racial Economic Inequality Amid the COVID-19 Crisis.
        The Hamilton Project. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC2020
        https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/EA_HardyLogan_LO_8.12.pdf
        (Accessed October 14, 2020)
        View in Article
        • Koch P
        Forging the future of food and nutrition education.
        J Nutr Educ Behav. 2020; 52: 755-756
        View in Article

      11. Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB): Statement on addressing racial injustice. 2020.https://www.sneb.org/blog/2020/06/17/general/the-society-for-nutrition-education-and-behavior-sneb-statement-on-addressing-racial-injustice/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

        View in Article

      12. Food Solutions New England. 21-day racial equity habit building challenge. 2020.https://foodsolutionsne.org/21-day-racial-equity-habit-building-challenge/. Accessed October 18, 2020.

        View in Article
        • Valley W
        • Anderson M
        • Tichenor-Blackstone N
        • et al.
        Towards an equity competency model for sustainable food systems education program.
        Elem Sci Anth. 2020; 8: 33
        View in Article

      Article info

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      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2020.10.009

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      © 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior.

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