Queering Nutrition and Dietetics

This book presents experiences of LGBTQ+ people relating to food, bodies, nutrition, health, wellbeing, and being queer through critical writing and creative art. The chapters bring LGBTQ+ voices into the spotlight through arts-based scholarship and contribute to experiential learning, allowing for more understanding of the lives of LGBTQ+ people within the dietetic profession. Divided into three parts, the first explores eating, food, and bodies; the second discusses communities, connections, and celebrations; and the final part covers care in practice. Topics include body image, eating disorders, weight stigma, cooking and culinary journeys, queer food culture, queer practices in nutrition counseling, and gendered understandings of nutrition. Exploring not only experiences of marginalization, homophobia, transphobia, and cisheteronormativity within dietetics and nutritional healthcare, this collection also dives into the positive connections and supportive communities that food can create. Special attention is paid to the intersections of oppression, colonialism, social justice, and politics. This book will be beneficial to all health professionals, educators, and students creating and fostering safer, more inclusive, and more accepting environments for their LGBTQ+ clients.

Phillip Joy is an assistant professor at Mount Saint Vincent University. His research focuses on queer nutrition and health. He is the co-editor for Rainbow Reflections: Body Image Comics for Queer Men. Megan Aston is a professor and the associate director of Research and International Affairs at Dalhousie University in the School of Nursing. She teaches and researches in the areas of social justice, community, family, and perinatal health.

PART 1 - Eating, Food, and Bodies 1. Double Visioning: A Two-Spirit Reflection on Food 2. The Unbearable Straightness of Intuitive Eating 3. Invisibility - In Visibility: Art-Based Autoethnography of a Bisexual Vegan Woman with Type 1 Diabetes 4. Out of the Closet, Into Some Other Kind of Prison: One Gay Asian Man's Journey Finding Self-Worth While Navigating Body Image and Eating Disorders 5. Fermentating Trans Care: Embracing Animacy as a Life-Affirming Alternative to Nutritionism 6. Thirst Trap 7. Coming Together over Food: Coalitional Possibilities Surfacing in/through (Un)Healthy Queerness 8. Queer(y)ing Foodways: An Agrifood Feminist Killjoy Critique of Narratives Dominating Foodways 9. Styling Flesh: Queer and Trans Bodies and the Neoliberal Commodification of Health Veganism 10. How Sociocultural Structures Shape Body Image and Dietary Practices among Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men's Communities 11. Delicious Queer Bodies 12. The Impact of the Outsider's Gaze and Societal Norms around Food and Bodies on Queer Individuals 13. Food has Genders (and Sexualities): Negotiating Foodways, Bodies, Weight, Health, and Identity 14. My Daily Meal PART 2 - Communities, Connections, and Celebrations 15. The Eating Test: Notes from a Jewish Lesbian Omnivore 16. Breaking Out of the Pack: Roller Derby and the Journey to Self-Discovery 17. Social Failure and Personal Best: An Autoethnography of Food and Gender in the Life of a Queer Youth Who Cooks with Vermouth 18. Recipe for a Queer Cookbook 19. Girlfriends: A Culinary (Re)collection 20. Gender-Reveal Cakes and Transphobia 21. Meat Cute 22. Achari Anecdotes: Exploring Queer Food Cultures in Indian Kitchens 23. Not Ready Yet 24. Food, Consumption, and Queer Subjectivity in Contemporary American Cinema 25. Have You Eaten Today? 26. Food as Cultural and Body Shame: Experiences of an Ethnic Sexual Minority Emerging Adult 27. Turning Over a New Leaf: Uncovering Gay Identity Alongside a Vegan Journey PART 3 - From the Front Lines: Queer Care in Practice 28. The Cerberus Helmet Project: Feast of Wisdom 29. Fairy Tales: Fables from BC Dietitians 30. Still Dreaming After All These Years that Dietetics Be (Made) Relevant 31. Being Trans in Dietetics: A Step in the Movement towards Trans and Queer Liberation through Collaborative Conversation 32. Light of a New Day 33. How Recovering from an Eating Disorder Made Me Queer 34. Nutrition in Chemsex 35. Ace(ing) ED 36. "Going from Invisible to Visible": Challenging the "Normal" Ranges, Cut-Offs, and Labels Used to Describe the Sizes and Shapes of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Bodies 37. A Case Study Exploring Relations Between Creativity, Queering and Undoing Coloniality in Dietetic Theory