Be The Change: Reflections from the International Dietetics Congress

I am writing this post suspended 3000 feet up in the air somewhere over the Atlantic. As tends to happen on long flights (when you’re not tirelessly entertaining young children), my mind has wandered. I am on my way home from the International Dietetics Congress, a 3-day meeting held in Granada, Spain, that brought together members of dietitian associations from across the World. I was lucky to have been awarded a travel grant from Dietitians of Canada to present my doctoral work, which also meant that I was able to hear renowned experts speak about our profession. I am heading home inspired and passionate about my practice. Motivated to help individuals and groups to improve their nutrition. However, due to my research experiences, I am acutely aware that sustainable change is hard. In my own talk, I presented data showing that the influence of these types of educational meetings on improving health is small and that it is estimated to take 1-2 decades for the findings of research studies to be incorporated into routine practice! Yikes… These are pretty disheartening stats!

As I flick through my notes from the last few days (yes, I am old school and use a pen and paper), a few quotes have stood out which I’d like to share. Whether you work as a dietitian, or in an entirely different field, these words communicate principals that are worth pondering and acting on. While they were all spoken by different speakers discussing divergent topics, the underlying theme is the same…. championing change.

The theme of the congress was ‘going to sustainable eating’. I was particularly alarmed by the data communicating the magnitude of food waste in developed countries. A third of food we purchase is wasted. We lose $90 billion each year on food that is not eaten. Each person wastes 125kg of food each year. (Sorry the supporting references were not provided).  I felt ashamed as I recalled all the times I have thrown food into the compost. It might become useful organic matter but nonetheless someone has grown, transported, maybe processed and packaged that food item so that it can be used to nourish me, and instead I have let it sit in my fridge too long or I was greedy and served myself too much! This quote by the president of the congress during the opening ceremony is powerful. We as consumers can change the world with our food purchasing decisions. The food industry will listen if we come together and demand changes to support a sustainable food system and to ensure the protection of the earth for our future generations.

In a session about the history of dietetics I learned how our profession was born out of the disciplines of nursing and home economics. During the 60’s and 70’s there was a move to distance our predominantly female profession from these historical roots, to facilitate its acceptance as a scientific discipline by the male dominant academic community. With the luxury of hindsight, we see that some important founding principals may have been lost along the way. The above quote demonstrates how for sustainable change to occur we need to learn from our predecessors and act on these historical lessons.

I have an interest in communicating evidence based nutrition messages and so I attended several sessions on adopting technology and social media in dietetic practice. During our training, we learn how to counsel individuals, educate groups, and how to run health promotion campaigns; consequently dietitians tend to be great communicators. However, to date our voices have not been strong among the cacophony of nutrition messages circulating in the media every day. We have preferred instead to work within our own client groups and communities. But to have an impact in contemporary society we need to become better at collaborating with our peers, with other health professionals, and with key influencers. Engaging others to advocate on our behalf can help facilitate the spread of consistent, evidence informed nutrition messages and start to reduce misinformation and confusion. It was great to hear about some of the initiatives promoting the role of dietitians in the media. The above quote was a call to action by one of the speakers on how we can shift the existing paradigm by positioning ourselves as influencers in the field of nutrition.

Often we sit back and talk about what needs to change. Often we feel helpless and ill equipped to make an impact (I do anyway). Sometimes we just have to start somewhere, take a single step, and just maybe change will follow.

Now if you excuse me it is time for a mid-flight nap!