Nutrition Evidence Alert – April 2021 - Diversity & Inclusion

07 May 2021 Nutrition Evidence Alert – April 2021 – Diversity & Inclusion

in NED Alert by Melanie de Grooth

Diversity – Influences of Ethnic and Social Backgrounds

As lockdown eases and some normality returns, there does appear to be an increasing awareness of the importance of food choices for our health and well-being. However, we know that diet, lifestyle and health are heavily influenced by factors such as background, culture and socio-economic status. We also know that Nutritional Therapy is often not accessible to those who need us most.

This month, to coincide with the launch of BANT’s diversity project panel, our focus is on the topic of diversity. In our profession we see the term ‘diversity’ used in various contexts, however, for the purpose of this Nutrition Evidence Alert, we are looking at inclusivity of people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds.

BANT is committed to increasing diversity within the nutritional therapy sector – encouraging and supporting practitioners from a range of backgrounds and making nutritional therapy services available and applicable to the widest possible audience.

This will require a range of initiatives; from finding ways to make our services more accessible from a financial standpoint, to ensuring practitioners are equipped to support the unique needs of different groups, and collaborating with training providers to increase awareness and accessibility of nutritional therapy as a profession.

In this issue of the Nutrition Evidence Alert the editorial team has selected 31 papers to provide examples of just some of the areas we need to consider when working with different groups and the impact on outcomes these can have. Those that have been indexed by the team are listed below.

Recommended Blog and Podcast this month

Race Equality Foundation: Covid-19 and How it Affects Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic People and Communities

Naked Nutrition: Gut Health and Sex with Miguel Toribio-Mateas, May 2020

From our Guest Editor: Clare Evans

Clare Evans is a management consultant who has led and contributed to multiple Diversity & Inclusion programmes both in the UK and Middle East. Clare is passionate about inclusion and presented on the importance of diversity & inclusion and the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) at a Women in Construction (WiC) Summit in Dubai in 2019. She also led her organisation to win ‘Gender Diversity Champion of the Year, 2019’ at the Middle East Consultant Awards.
Clare is an NLP practitioner, has an Msc in Personlised Nutrition from CNELM and is currently studying to complete a Personalised Nutrition Practice Diploma (PNPD), also at CNELM.
Clare is a volunteer in BANT’s Diversity & Inclusion project team.