Translating from Knowing to Doing

Social Change

Last week I began to really think about the distance between our “knowing” of community health nutrition and actually translating that to actions that will lead to desirable changes. One thing I can definitely conclude is that the gap is huge. I guess the social economic gap isn’t the only distance we need to pave.
Malcolm Gladwell’s speech regarding social change was an inspiring piece to me. In fact, it evoked so much in me that I thought it deserved another week’s spotlight on this blog. After this week’s discussion on building healthy communities through social change, it has further reinstated my belief that awareness itself is not enough, but at the same time, absolutely necessary.
When I first heard Gladwell’s speech, I was sceptical for a while about whether or not awareness was as useful as the amount of investment required suggests. But a very important person in my life gave me one simple, but surprisingly moving example to wash my scepticism. The story began with a big wave that washed up thousands of starfish onto a beach. The starfish began dying on the beach, and one single little girl began picking them up one by one, and throwing each back into the ocean. She did this for hours, and still it seemed the same thousands of starfish remained on the beach. At this time, a man jogging on the beach passes by the little girl, and asks what she’s doing. She replies by telling him that the starfish are dying, so she’s trying to save them by picking up each one and throwing them back in the ocean. The man laughs, and tells the girl that she would never be able to save them all, as there were simply too many. The little girl was not discouraged; she smiled and told the man that she knew she couldn’t save them all, but she would not stop trying, and each one she manages to throw back into the ocean would be one life saved. The man continued running, a little ways down the beach, he stops, picks up a starfish, and throws it back into the ocean.
The way I interpreted this story is similar to how I perceive social change must occur. We cannot satisfy everybody, and sometimes our actions may not be agreed by and acknowledged by everybody. However, sometimes it isn’t about how many people you yourself can directly help; it is also about inspiring other people to do the same. Similar to what Kingwell said on the same night; sometimes change begins with inspiring others to be empathetic.
My question now is about creating healthy communities. We discussed in lecture that difference can be seen most on a local level, but do these small changes always lead to our goal of making Canada a healthier country?

Getting to the Next Step

Within the safety and comforts of our class room walls, we have learned about the nutritional issues at large. These issues range from childhood obesity, the aging Canadian population, to most recently, the increasing burden on our healthcare system. We discuss the underlying issues, and brainstorm possible action plans or directions; none of which, I’m sure, haven’t already been discussed by current nutrition and healthcare professionals. But why, then, are we still talking about the same issues, causes, and correlating variables as we have for the past decades? One question brought up in our class discussion, for me, really hit the point: How do we get to the next step? As Malcolm Gladwell so convincingly addressed in his speech on social change, how do we get from the Knowing, to Doing?
After listening to his 15 minute speech, I spent a good night thinking on it, and after hearing the rest of the program and the debated between Gladwell and Kingwell, I’ve come to some sort of conclusion of my own.
In the context of nutrition, creating social change – addressing issues of resource placement, raising awareness on the concept of health, and eliminating stigmatization – in Canada is especially difficult. We can look at countries like Japan and Denmark, study them, and try to find out what it is that they are doing different from us which contribute to their success; but one very important confounding variable is the diversity of our society. Canada is known as a country of multiculturalism (this statement is controversial in itself), and for this reason, people have very different definitions of health, equality, equity; these are the same things we try to give our citizens. How can we achieve this when the definitions in itself are so diverse?
Gladwell makes many important and thought provoking statements in his speech, one that sticks out to me is when he reminds us how little we actually know. We believe that we know what is going on, but we are only seeing a glimpse of the whole picture. This statement draws me back to humility and reminds me that sometimes, maybe things just have to run their course.
I do believe awareness is an important part, and has given us some large strides; but like our knowledge of the global and national issues that we might wrongly believe to have a completely understanding, our increased awareness is only a small step towards our ultimate goal, which may very well change as our exposure increases.

When will it be our turn to 'reform'?

After having concluded our three week trilogy with Health Promotion, here is what I had to take away from it all. We are working towards a goal; and that is to enable individuals to increase control over their lives. This, to me, is the heart of health promotion; helping individuals help themselves. And only when we reach this goal, will the burden on our current health care system truly be alleviated. Here is my question: what happens when that goal is reached? What happens to the role of nutrition professionals?
In our discussion regarding community health centres, the take-home message was “Healthy individuals make healthy communities”. Suppose sometime in the future, our goal is reached, and individuals are well aware of nutritional faux-pas, what happens then to the professionals that are no longer needed? What is there left for us to do with our years of education and training? It’s not that I don’t want to help people, but I also want to make sure that we won’t be left, at the end of this journey, as the ones who now need help because we’re unemployed.
Currently, there is a need for health care reform, in order to ensure the sustainability of our health care system. Perhaps a ‘Nutritional professionals reform’ will be called for in due time?
Several weeks ago, an elderly couple approached me and asked which types of olive oil they are supposed to cook with, because they had been told that you cannot cook with certain types. This question caught me so off-guard. First off, I did not realise there were olive oils that ‘should not’ be used in cooking. Second, I felt so embarrassed that as a fourth-year nutrition student, I was unable to answer this old man’s seemingly simple question. I eventually did some research at home and was relieved to find out the only negative thing about cooking with certain olive oils is causing it to lose its taste. Now looking back at this incident, I can’t help but wonder what would happen when the public (lay people) will know more about these nutrition-related information than us? Is there a need for our roles to evolve as the health of our communities do so?