Public Health Nutrition

Catalog description

The course is designed to introduce students to the core concepts, policies, and practice of public health nutrition using an explicitly antiracist, non-diet framework. Drawing upon real world examples, the lived experience of course participants, and guest speakers, we will interrogate the current and historic events, forces, and policy changes that have shaped the traditional diet-culture paradigm used throughout the field and the inequalities and injustices this paradigm has perpetuated. In addition to an introduction to nutrition science, students will be offered a foundational understanding of federal, state, and local agriculture, nutrition, and emergency food related legislation and policy—including, but not limited to—the Farm Bill, Child Nutrition Reauthorization, the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Fund, the State Food Purchase Program, and Philadelphia’s citywide sugar sweetened beverage tax. Together, we will examine and critically analyze the intention, implementation, and impacts of these policies and their resulting programs. Throughout the course we explore topics and issues including hunger and food insecurity, diet and wellness culture, disordered eating and eating disorders, the “obesity epidemic,” as well as alternative frameworks, approaches, and movements such as Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating, and the food justice and sovereignty movements.