Shortly before winter break, our daughter came home from elementary school with materials she received during an educational event regarding a local food pantry. While I look through everything she brings home, I was particularly curious about these materials because issues of community nutrition have long been important to me. On one hand, I was glad she learned that food insecurity exists and that society has resources in place to assist people who are struggling, but on the other hand, I had some concerns about specific messages contained in the materials. 

By way of background, I have taken an interest in community nutrition ever since I was given an eye-opening homework assignment a couple of decades ago. My professor tasked me with going to the grocery store to research prices and to use the information to design a diet that would nutritionally satisfy the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet while also financially satisfying the Thrifty Food Plan’s allowance of $4.37 per day. Unfortunately, I failed, as the closest I could come was $4.77 per day, still $0.40 over budget. If I could not do it despite my nutrition knowledge and mathematics degree, then how is someone with less education in such matters supposed to figure it out?

The assignment helped me to appreciate the impacts that financial limitations and food availability can have on health. The simple truth that people can only buy what they can afford and is accessible to them sounds so obvious now, but it took studying community nutrition for me to really get it. When I rode my bicycle from Seattle to Boston that summer, I made a point to visit the grocery stores on the Native American reservations that I passed through because I wanted to understand the options available to the residents of these relatively isolated communities.

During my dietetic internship in Boston, I spent time working on a roving healthcare van that stopped in some of the more impoverished areas of the city. We gave out condoms, took blood pressure readings, performed blood sugar checks, and answered nutrition questions for anybody who visited. During our breaks, my preceptor took me around the neighborhoods to visit restaurants, food pantries, and grocery stores. We talked with some of the regulars who relied on the pantries, and I was struck by the realization that food insecurity is not some abstract notion in textbooks or a relic of a bygone era, but rather a present challenge for many people in our own city. Many years later, I remain conscious of this reality, and I was glad to hear that our daughter’s class learned about what I believe is an important topic.

Unfortunately, some of the materials she received reinforce a dichotomous view of food that is damaging, oversimplified, and – quite honestly – unnecessary. For example, one exercise in a workbook invited her to take stickers of various foods and to sort them into “healthy food” and “junk food” bins. Another exercise asked her to draw a picture of a “healthy” meal. 

The food pantry’s materials reflect how our society generally views and talks about food, but while this kind of language is common, it is also problematic. These kinds of dichotomies warp how kids see food and set them up for potential issues as evidenced by the large number of patients who can trace their disorders back to something like this. 

How “healthy” a given food is depends on context. Bananas are commonly known as being a significant source of potassium, which might make them helpful for somebody with hypertension, but perhaps less helpful for someone with renal disease, so onto which bin should my daughter affix a banana sticker? Because a myriad of factors – medical, cultural, personal, social, financial, etc. – influence our eating, absolute claims about any particular food are going to apply to some individuals while completely missing the boat for others.

Besides, while food pantries are essential, teaching nutrition to school children seems like an unnecessary step towards fulfilling their mission. Imagine the sad irony of being a kid in class whose family struggles to make ends meet and being told by a food pantry – maybe even the very food pantry that you and your family rely on – that a food you and your family utilize to survive belongs in the “junk food” bin. How is that child going to feel, and what are they going to do, next time their family serves a meal or snack featuring that food?

So I reached out to the food pantry in question and communicated my concerns. As a preliminary step, I emailed our daughter’s teacher. She shared my concerns and strongly encouraged me to directly contact the food pantry in question, which I did. In my message to them, I explained that I was neither angry nor was I judging them, but rather I was reaching out in the spirit of constructive criticism and a willingness to help. To their credit, they responded quickly and with an open mind. They requested that we schedule a time to talk so they can learn more. Similarly, I hope our conversation will help me to better understand what they are trying to achieve by their inclusion of nutrition talk in their student materials. Perhaps we can devise a plan together to reach those same goals in a way that mitigates the risk of inadvertent harm.