One step forward, two steps back

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

It’s February, which means that it is American Heart Health Month, the very important holiday Valentine’s Day takes place, and it is Black History Month. If we want to get real, Black History is really American History, but here we are. Yeah, and I don’t care that Google wanted to erase Black History altogether, along with other marginalized celebrations, due to our fascist leader. Over on this side of the internet, we are honoring it. I mean, it’s the shortest month, and that’s the very least we can do.

We already started with a bang - Beyoncé won the Album of the Year Grammy, which was long overdue, (do not come in my comment section with any Beyonce grievances, please and thank you) Kendrick Lamar demonstrated how to verbally eviscerate your mortal enemy artistically, and the Eagles had a Black quarterback that won them the Superbowl. A great start, if I do say so myself. So, all this being said, I want to take time to highlight some Black History within the health and nutrition space.

The Black Panthers

When you think of nutrition, do you think of the Black Panthers? Well, you should. Yes, those Black Panthers. Founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the party in 1966, and their goal was to end police brutality in Oakland, California. However, a faction of the Civil Rights Movement led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee member Stokeley Carmichael began calling for the uplift and self-determination of African Americans, thus beginning the party’s goal of promoting the health of Black Americans as well.

The group lived rent-free in FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s mind. In fact, on June 15, 1969, Hoover declared, "The Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." He pledged that 1969 would be the last year of the Party's existence. The Black Panthers might have seemed like a radical group, but if you actually break down their intentions, all they wanted was for the Black people in America to be treated equally, and they did everything in their power to ensure that. And what is really interesting is that it is not only Black people who are reaping the rewards of their efforts from years ago. One of those efforts is the nourishment of children.

Free Breakfast Program

Food is a human right. However, we know that food is not accessible to everyone and there are programs in place that can assist with this. Due to poverty, food insecurity, and other factors, many families with children are not able to nourish and feed them as they should. Free school lunches and breakfast programs assist with this, and when children are at school, they can at least be provided with two meals a day.

In addition to needing food for survival and growing, of course, hungry bellies also create tired and less alert children at school. Think of how you feel when you realize that you’re hungry. You are tired and irritable and not very pleasant to be around. Now think about how a hungry child who does not have the self-regulation or emotional intelligence that adults have would act. Think about the many children who have “behavior problems” listed on their records and think about how many of those might be correlated to being hungry (in addition to many other possibilities.) See, the Black Panther Party realized this many years ago and wanted to help with this problem.

The Black Panthers started the Free Breakfast for School Children Program in January 1969 at an Episcopal church in Oakland. Within weeks, the number of mouths to feed increased. Here’s how the program initially worked: party members and volunteers went to local grocery stores to get donations, consulted with nutritionists on healthy breakfast options for children, and prepared and served the food free of charge. The best part was that the results were noted by school officials immediately. “The school principal came down and told us how different the children were,” Ruth Beckford, a parishioner who helped with the program, said later. “They weren’t falling asleep in class, they weren’t crying with stomach cramps.” A win all around.

This seems like a great, innocent program, correct? However, the Black Panthers’ number one hater, J. Edgar Hoover, had his FBI agents go door-to-door in cities like Richmond, Virginia, telling parents that the party would teach their children racism. In San Francisco, parents were told the food was infected with venereal disease, and the sites in Oakland and Baltimore were raided by officers who harassed members in front of children. The night before the first breakfast program in Chicago was supposed to open, police broke into the church and mashed up all the food, and urinated on it. Please take time to process all of this because, again, all that was being done was feeding school children. Also, think about the politicians today who are trying to dismantle the breakfast and lunch programs for children.

Ultimately, because of the target placed on the Black Panther Party, the breakfast program that they created was dismantled. However, in 1975, the School Breakfast Program (SBP) by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was authorized. Today, the SBP is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and non-profit private schools and residential childcare institutions and feeds over 14.57 million children.

Self-Care

The Civil Rights movement also brought up the concept of self-care. When we think of self-care now, what comes to mind? A bubble bath, a romance book, buying flowers, staying in on the weekend, a pint of ice cream (this is me), or whatever else you can think of. I know that the word and concept has turned into a popular hashtag on social media, usually accompanied by a very aesthetically pleasing picture. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but it is a sharp detour from its origins. So, what does this have to do with activism?

The concept originally was only regarded as a medical concept. Doctors have long discussed it as a way for patients to treat themselves and exercise healthy habits, most often under the guidance of a health professional. However, activists saw that poverty was correlated with poor health, and they argued that in order to dismantle hierarchies based on race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, those groups must be able to live healthy lives. AKA my favorite topic which is the social determinants of health.

“Self-care was a claiming [of] autonomy over the body as a political act against institutional, technocratic, very racist, and sexist medicine.” - Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an assistant professor at the New School

As activist leaders fought for racial justice in the United States, they realized the lack of medical resources further inhibited their fight for equality. By creating access to healthy food, setting up health clinics, and building programs to share necessary information, the Black Panther Party put the concept of self-care into action. Party member Angela Davis said, “If we don’t start practicing collective self-care now, there’s no way to imagine, much less reach, a time of freedom.” In other words, living healthily required the involvement of both individuals and communities in their own health promotion instead of the reliance on outside forces. Collective thinking versus individualistic thinking.

Both Angela Davis and fellow party member Ericka Huggins adopted mindfulness techniques and movement arts like yoga and meditation while incarcerated. After their release, they both began championing the power of proper nutrition and physical movement to preserve one’s mental health while navigating an inequitable, sociopolitical system and creating wellness programs for adults and children.

So now what?

Did you learn something today? Or maybe you were reminded of these Black American History facts. I have already written about my nervousness regarding this current administration, and it feels like we are regressing through history. For every step forward, it feels like we are taking a couple of steps back simultaneously.

Making America healthy for who?

This is why it’s so important to continue discussing these facts. I am currently part of the 3% of Black dietitians in the United States, so it’s incredibly important to keep discussing history and working towards positive change. Not to mention I work in public health, so consistently discussing health and risk factors such as the social determinants of health will always be on my list.

I always find it odd to write about how humans should care for one another and how improving the lives of another person is positive and also means that it is best for the collective. Ensuring that everyone has access to food doesn’t mean that your access to food diminishes. Just like how ensuring that everyone has access to healthcare, wouldn’t mean that your access to healthcare suddenly disappears. It’s not a pie with limited slices available. It means that if we all had access to food, healthcare, clothing, safe housing, clean water, etc., there would be an improvement in productivity and contribution to society. This is a positive thing, yet it receives so much pushback. I’m never surprised at how much certain folks work to try to uphold systemic systems, just continually disappointed.

That being said, I will continue to write and talk about these factors and how important they are. Want to support my work in doing so? There are a few options:

For starters, I have a book out now called Live Nourished: Make Peace with Food, Banish Body Shame, and Reclaim Joy. It is available wherever books are sold and does a deep dive into not only diet culture but the systems at play, including all the -isms (classism, racism, sexism, ableism, etc.) If you read it and liked it, it would mean a ton to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

And you can also become a paid subscriber here on Substack. You will get a weekly newsletter every Saturday (plus some bonus materials) versus a limited amount for free subscribers. It takes a ton of time and effort to research and write, so your support means a ton. I share a bunch of free information on social media already, so I have decided that this will be the paid platform. It’s $7 a month (which is the cost of a latte plus tip in NYC) or $70 a year (which is less than a ton of 2 oz. skincare products out there.) Any support would mean the world. Thanks again.