Inclusivity of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Weight Loss and Wellness

Yaa Boayke: [00:00:00] I said, I’m going to talk about a very important topic, which is exclusivity of black, indigenous and people of color in the weight loss and wellness space on social media. This topic is very near and dear to my heart and I did an interview with Mikka, a fellow Dietitian Boss instructor, a while back on this. I figured I’d just create an audio file that you all can listen to on the Dietitian Boss podcast summarizing what we talked about. So if you’re listening to this, you probably fall in one of two groups, maybe more, but I’m just going to assume, because it’s a Dietitian Boss podcast, that you’re a nutrition professional or you are a nutrition student. And for the nutrition professionals and students watching, I know you all know in class we attend a class or two with titles such as multicultural foods or ethnic foods, but we don’t walk away fully understanding much about how to incorporate these foods in our client’s plans, which is OK. We can’t be expected to be experts in everything. In fact, in the Dietitian Boss program, we emphasize the importance of niching down, but it’s important that we take it upon ourselves to be active taste testers and post more than avocado’s and include more than quinoa on plans and really offer our clients a taste of the world. It’s important that not only do we share posts about these foods, we also try them ourselves and we commit ourselves to just being more well-rounded. Meals that you have not tried, try to incorporate them in your own household. And ultimately the goal is to learn what the options are. So when you have a client, you can show them that you have invested the time to learn about different foods that can be easily incorporated from different cultures to meet such a certain nutrient requirements like protein, fat and carbs and being able to know when you work with someone who is not someone you typically work with, this is a person of color, they could be someone who has just dynamically different dietary needs. You opening yourself up to learning more is going to make it easier to have these conversations and it will allow you to understand how to educate them about modifying foods and pairing them so it could be suitable based on their individual goals. I’ll give you an example. Growing up, I knew nothing about Korean barbecue, so I spent some time eating it and researching it so I could be more aware if I ever need it to culturally tailor plan. Some of the things that I like, actually I’ll just give you one, because I could go on and on and on. I like Bulgogi, which is a marinated beef, and for lower sodium, you can aim for reducing the soy sauce, using a soy sauce that has lower sodium. If you want to improve the profile, you can skip the sugar and or reduce the sesame oil. So that’s a good example of taking something and just making small tweaks, not trying to completely, quote unquote, Americanize it or wherever you are in the world, doing the more standard modification to it, but really just making small tweaks. So it’s still something that’s desirable and worth eating. If we continue to positively promote traditional foods so people can reach their weight loss goals and their health goals while retaining their heritage and pride, we will see better retention to the plans that they’re given and we will also see improved health outcomes. Additionally, this is a life that’s going to be more meaningful for them. They will be able to go out with their relatives, go out with colleagues and not feel as if they are now a different person and don’t find any of those scenarios desirable because they’ve been given a plan that they personally just don’t like. And what’s important to note as well is black people, indigenous people and other people of color are particularly at risk for the lack of access for foods that you may have heard about traditionally in school and disproportionately live in food deserts. So being able to understand this and being able to recognize the privilege of being a nutrition professional, being a dietitian and your wealth of knowledge, you oftentimes can get stuck in this bubble of wanting to make recommendations based on all that information without tailoring it based off a socioeconomic status, demographic data, personal preference culture and so on. So be wary of how you position yourself and how you communicate with yourself, and you’re going to have to check yourself more times and not and not assume I am culturally woke or I have X amount of patients that are of color. So I feel pretty good. Never come from a place of complacency. You have to come from a place of I don’t know. And even if you feel like you do, just assume you don’t. So you can show up better for them. In terms of being able to fit in these cultural foods, a lot of nutrition professionals wonder, like, OK, you gave me the example of the Korean dish. What are some other things that I can do? Well, these are things that we talk about all the time in school. This is no different. It’s really amazing that most people the first thought, I shouldn’t say most people, a good chunk of people will just say, hey, just follow this plan instead of just saying, hey, you know, let’s look at the strategies that are available like portion control. So you can work with them and show them how to portion their favorite foods and you can educate them about how to do that and be able to include it in their life and still reach their desired outcome without guilt or fear. You can also allow yourself a chance to really express and as often as you can, honestly, not even just with clients of color, is that, you know, not everything is going to be healthy or has to be, I should say, quote unquote, healthy, for example. You know, people may not always want to broil their food and occasionally they may want to fry their food instead. The goal should be work to reduce the number of days that you fry foods, this is information that we get. But you just have to be really cognizant that you don’t always hear fried and go, no, no, no, no, you’ve got to broil or steam. Or someone tells you about them eating French fries and you’re like, no, no, no, eliminate instead saying portion control. These are ways that we can really show people how to easily fit in their foods without stress. It’s also important that you educate yourself about how to make smarter choices when grocery shopping. It’s very easy for you to maybe be coming from a place of maybe I’m not couponing, maybe I’m not looking at some of the various resources that are available to get the grocery bill down. So if you can educate yourself about how to eat, if you had X amount of money, that would be very helpful insights for your clients. Additionally, if you are looking for some resources, a great website is Old Ways that provides helpful guides for African heritage diet and big disclaimer, Africa is a monolith. But for the sake of this guide, it’s more helpful for us to not think of it that way. But in the context of this, it’s really important that we recognize that there are people that are East African, South African, West African and so on. So they’re going to have different food items on their list that they’re going to want to buy. So, you know, you want to make sure that we aren’t looking at things in a very narrow way, because that’s going to really make it hard for us to really provide good insights and help to people who need us. For nutrition professionals that are struggling and feeling the burden about, oh, gosh, I have to learn about a lot of cultures, consider a small step, right? What is a grain or two can share in your coaching program? That’s from a different culture or proteins, veggies and so on. We have a tendency to have these theme menus like, you know, Mexican, Italian, American, but we leave out some of the other ones that are also very prominent, African, Middle Eastern, South American. So if you can open up your heart and mind and add a bit more and again, you don’t need to know everything, but adding a few new things from these different regions can be so helpful and opening up your clients minds and perspectives, because by you educating them about this, that’s going to turn into your clients being more worldly as well, which is great for the entire universe, for us to just be more accepting of our various food preferences. I think that’s so great and it’s a good stride to take. So some big tips and takeaways, obviously, are to create food lists for your clients, including some of those unique foods that you’re going to uncover. Make sure you’re trying those foods and understanding a little bit how the preparation changes it. That’s super, super, super important as well. And when you’re presenting the items to your client, say, hey, is there anything on here that you have a question about or you want to swap out? That is at least giving them some autonomy in the food selection process, because we have to recognize that food preparation can be super whitewashed as well. Quite honestly, the types of foods even depend upon the ability in the facilities to actually store and cook the food as well as the time needed to prepare those food. So make sure you really think about the environment in which people are eating and not always assume someone’s going to have a wolf oven or they’re going to have a deep freezer. So that means probably no Costco suggestions. Maybe they don’t have four pans to cook at once. So being able to be more open is just going to allow you to be more flexible and being a flexible nutrition practitioner is going to allow you to go a long way in your career. It’s also going to allow you to be relatable to more people. The reason why I bring this up is because there are so many different environments in which people have low and honestly inadequate access, such as food swamps. Food swamps are basically increased concentration of foods with low nutrient density. There’s also food mirages, neighborhoods with seemingly adequate full-service grocery stores with a variety of food. But most of those foods may be culturally or socially acceptable to that neighborhood. And then food deserts, which is the most common and what we learn in school. And it’s a very interesting origin story. The phrase food desert originated in the United Kingdom, and it described a newly built, isolated public housing devoid of viable food shopping for its residents. The general unavailability of healthy food is clearly a disadvantage. It really makes it a challenge to follow some of the basic nutrition tenets that you learn in school. The Gallagher Research and Consulting Group argued that the relationship between the distance between grocery stores relative to the distance to fast food is relevant to a neighborhood’s food balance. So when you have a bunch of fast food restaurants that are closer than supermarkets, well, where do you think the residents are going to go? And we see that residents in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, for instance, where I live, I live in Chicago, tend to have to travel the farthest distance to go to a grocery store compared to white people and even in racially diverse neighborhoods. African-Americans are just half as likely to have access to chain supermarkets and Hispanics are about a third less likely to have access to chain supermarkets. So these facts make it really challenging to truly promote healthy eating, and we need to make sure that we as professionals are doing our part to educate where we can. Platforms like Instagram are free. It’s an easy way every once in a while post something that’s about quick five minute or no cook meals or hundred dollar grocery haul or fifty dollar grocery haul. Any time you can use your platform to share helpful tips like that, that’s going to be valuable. The other thing that I would like to share with you is a big part is not just sharing. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, you do want to give the people you work with some autonomy. You want to help them build self efficacy, and you want them to understand that they’re not less than or unable to reach their goal because of their circumstance and teaching them how to manage calorie consumption at the places that they’re going and learning how to make simple swaps is very, very helpful and invaluable. It’s going to allow them to reach their goals rather than stressing about not having consistent access to kale. The moral of the story is really control the controllables. Drink water or find the lowest calorie beverage available, eat fruits and veggies you can get even if it’s canned or frozen. That’s fine. Don’t freak out about something being ideal or perfect. Try to minimize that language. Use seasoning, sauces, oils and butter’s a little bit less and those are some helpful control, the controllable tips that you can offer and also tell them to follow pages that educate and inspire them. There are amazing pages right now that are on Instagram like Eatwell Exchange, and pages like that are doing so great in terms of providing resources and helpful tips to people in the black community who want to learn how to eat while including their cultural foods and achieving health outcomes that they desire. Some other places that you can send your client to on Instagram or accounts, I should say, Ayat, mom nutritionist, she posts so many quick educational videos that are not intimidating. Sarika of the Indian nutritionists, she posts content to inspire Indian Americans to create healthful lifestyles and she posts lots of great food hacks. And Joyce of Latina diabetes nutrition. She teaches Latinos how to manage their diabetes while incorporating their favorite foods. And Kyra, of black nutritionists who helps black women eliminate the dieting mindset and find food freedom. And I can go on and on. I’m definitely happy to share more, if you DM me. But that’s a good place to start. I want to also share with you some meal prep tips that you can share with your clients, remember, cooking tips aren’t always helpful, as I alluded to earlier, suggesting Costco assumes that they have the space in their house, assumes they have the storage capacity in their freezer and in their cabinets. It is a privilege to be able to bulk cook because you have a big freezer, fridge, and crock pot and air fryer and all that stuff yourself. And, you know, we have to check our privilege. I even have to check my own privilege because I have all those things myself. Even though I grew up in a low income household for over a decade, now that I have come into a position in my life where I have more money, I oftentimes find myself wanting to really stay true to my roots and remember that, you know, home cooked meals is not the solution for everyone, which is why I incorporate in my messaging on my Instagram page about how to order smart and how to make a lifestyle change to manage weight. In my main coaching program, I dive really deep into home cooking. But ultimately each client needs to have their own unique way to figure it out and the path of least resistance and slowly working them to implement new strategies. So while I will increase people’s self efficacy and confidence in cooking, it is important to develop that skill. I do recognize that some people don’t have those skills, which is why I like helping my clients understand how to order to go meals, because the reality is many people, like my clients face obstacles, staying late at work, getting held up in a meeting for too long, being called in at the last minute. They have all these other things going on, unreliable appliances, and by saying to them, make the time, don’t make excuses is really ignoring the fact that it is so, so, so cruel to say that because it’s easier said than done. There is work, there is time, there is so much that’s going on. It’s involved, there’s so much work and there’s so much time involved in listing out all the meals for the week, researching meals, deciding what to buy, balancing the budget to fix it, the labor involved in bulking. So we can’t guilt people into bulk cooking, rather help them fortify their pantry with items that can last long and be quickly cooked like frozen veggies are A-OK corn, green beans and peas. Those are great, great options to suggest. Grains, things like pasta and rice can be a base. Just change the presentation and it’s totally fine to buy minute rice or quick cooked pasta and beans and for protein, quick things that they can grab like tuna, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, canned salmon, black beans and thinking about some things that they can prepare quickly, like tuna salads, tuna sandwiches, burrito bowls, peanut butter sandwich with sunflower seeds, black and being mac and cheese, tuna, tuna mac and cheese. You know, these are the things that we can do to build more of a balanced meal without spending so much time trying to cook and use multiple pots and have so many different fancy preparation methods available from air frying to using your CV and your broiler and all that stuff. You know, it’s all about scaling it back. So I’m so happy that I did this episode. I had a blast when I recorded the full length interview with Mikka on her Instagram page. I hope you guys find these insights really helpful because it is really important that we include more inclusive language to black, indigenous and people of color in the weight loss and wellness space. I hope you take some of the tips I noted in this episode and start to incorporate them in your own practice. Alright guys, until next time.