"It's Very Isolating to Be a Palestinian Dietitian"

Meet the RD asking nutrition professionals to speak out against starvation as a weapon of war.

After sending my last essay, I received some angry unsubscriptions, many messages of thanks, and a few gentle push-backs from Jewish readers who disagreed with me on some points. In contrast to the divisive, often dehumanizing environment of social media, it has been a gratifying to engage with these readers in a mutually respectful way, and my next newsletter will feature a conversation with one of those readers, along with some thoughts on how to disagree while staying human. 

Photo by Stephen Harlan on Unsplash

There is so much chatter online when some celebrity reveals her "wellness" diet and it is mostly $18 cold-pressed juices, and not a lot of calories. And everyone was really mad about the supposed resurgence of "heroin chic" last year; I saw so many Canva carousels about it. It seems people have a lot to say about the appearance of starvation, especially in thin, white women — but when it comes to the UN's warning of "the immediate possibility of starvation" of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where about half the population is children, there has been a lot of silence in dietitian social media circles.

We don't study military strategy, or international diplomacy, or even global food policy in our dietetics curriculum. But as dietitians, we understand the health impacts of starvation, especially for children. As public health professionals, we know how famine — from war, natural disasters and other crises — can negatively affect the health not only of those experiencing it, but also the health of future generations.¹ There is nothing natural or inevitable about the lack of food, water, and fuel in Gaza right now. "Starvation is being used as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians," says Oxfam. And as dietitians, public health professionals, and others working in the food and nutrition space, we have an opportunity to stand up and say: this is wrong.

So I was happy to sign on to a letter that started circulating last week, entitled Dietitians and Public Health Professionals Against Collective Starvation And Punishment, and was glad its writer, Dua Aldasouqi, had time to chat with me about why she wrote it, what she hopes is accomplishes, and how dietitians can use their voices to support Palestinians.

Dua is a member of the Palestinian diaspora. Her father's family was originally from Jaffa, but they were expelled to another part of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba, and then were expelled to Jordan during the Naksa in 1967. Her mother's family left for a job opportunity in Kuwait before the 1967 war, but were unable to return. Dua was born in Jordan, and moved to the US when she was four years old. Her business, A Muslim Dietitian, offers nutrition information tailored for a Muslim audience, and also offers education to dietitians looking to better serve Muslim clients.

She has been sharing information, education and calls to action about Palestine since May 2021, when up to 192 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, about one-third of them children. At that time, she was hurt to discover that the mostly-white dietitian circle of friends she had built up online had nothing to say about what she was sharing. "It's one thing to have a differing view on this. It's another thing to not even recognize my own pain," she says. "Not a single one of them [was] like, Hey, I'm seeing what you're sharing. Are you okay?" 

As a result, she began focusing on her friendships with other BIPOC dietitians, and those from religious minorities. And it was one of those friends, Whitney Trotter, who reached out earlier this month to see what kind of support she needed, and provided encouragement and connections when Dua brought up the idea of writing a letter. With input from two other dietitians who are closely aligned on the issue, Nada Mays and Nosheen Hayat, she wrote the letter and posted it to Instagram. Less than one week later, it has over 1,200 signatures.

"It's very heartening," Dua says. "Because this whole time [has] been really isolating. It's very isolating to be a Palestinian dietitian." Seeing signatures coming in from dietitians she knows, and seeing the sheer number of people signing on has eased that feeling of isolation a bit.

Still, as she and the other organizers prepare to send the letter to the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, they don't expect much from the Academy, which provided a tepid response to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, and has a history of staying silent on issues of social justice. (More on that below.)

"Starvation and dehydration, it's literally — it's our field," says Dua. "As nutrition experts, we should be at the forefront of advocating for the end of this."

After sending it to the Academy, the organizers plan to send the letter out to food justice organizations and media outlets, generating support for a permanent ceasefire, as well as normalizing standing up for Palestinian human rights. For those who want to support those human rights, Dua recommends contacting legislators and putting pressure on professional groups like the Academy that have lobbyists, as well as raising awareness about the devastating lack of food, clean water, and fuel in Gaza, where “people are surviving on one meal a day – if they are lucky,” according to Paul Skoczylas, Director of the UN World Food Programme’s New York Office.

"As dietitians, we are naturally educators," says Dua. "That becomes part of it — using our voices to talk about starvation as a weapon of war, to talk about collective starvation, to talk about collective punishment." In the long term, she hopes that nutrition professionals will keep talking about Palestine, and will not allow the silencing of those speaking up about Palestinians. A ceasefire is not the end, she notes. "Because this was 2021. This happened in 2014. This happened in 2008. This happened in 2006. A Palestinian in Gaza who was two years old in 2006 has already gone through five wars."

If you have not yet signed on, the letter will remain a living document, and you are welcome to add your signature, share it on your networks, and amplify the call for an end to the use of starvation and dehydration as weapons of war in Gaza.

Note: Shortly before publishing this, a four-day ceasefire and exchange of hostages was announced. While this is welcome news, it is not enough to repair the decimated infrastructure in Gaza and meet humanitarian needs in the long term. Keep speaking up.

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1. For example: Historic Famine Leaves Multiple Generations Vulnerable to Infectious Disease and The Famine Ended 70 Years Ago, but Dutch Genes Still Bear Scars.