Food literacy: Building positive food relationships and well-being

Food is everywhere in our physical and digital spaces compelling us to eat, indulge, be healthy, but also to fear and avoid. This can engender confusion and mistrust, shaping identities and behaviours that create poor relationships with food and erode well-being. Children are particularly vulnerable to unhealthy food environments and inappropriate messaging about food, weight, and body image.  Many ‘healthy eating’ promotion strategies, however, are focused on reductionist interventions such as nutrition labels and altering intakes of individual ingredients/nutrients of ‘public health concern’ (e.g. sugar and salt). These approaches have not improved population nutritional health, and other strategies are warranted. Food literacy presents a wholistic, positive approach to conceptualizing food and nutrition education for children and adults, as an upstream cornerstone of healthcare and education. Scholars and educators must, however, be mindful of food discourses, including domestic food work and traditional gender roles, the ‘good mother’ ideal, as well as Euro-centric approaches to food and cooking. This session will present food literacy as a construct and give examples of pragmatic food literacy tools. It will discuss the need for non-moralizing and inclusive messaging when promoting food literacy. A case will also be made for researchers/educators to develop reflexivity when engaged in this work.

The Edith Rowles Simpson Lecture Series was established in 1972 to honour Dr. Simpson for her years of service to families of Saskatchewan through her work at the College of Home Economics and the University of Saskatchewan.