‘Go on have another one, it won’t hurt.’ My grandma says, shoving the biscuit tin under my nose for the third time.
‘Eat up all your dinner or you won’t get dessert’, sings my mum.
‘Great report from school, let’s treat you to some sweets. Just don’t tell your mum.’ My dad promises.
My childhood has constantly been shaped by food; to unite my family, as reward, as health incentive or as deterrent. Growing up I was always confused by my relationship with food; eating chocolate is bad for me, so I must be bad, but I get chocolate as a reward for good behaviour. This paradox haunted my thoughts; how can chocolate be both good and bad? I was conditioned to respond to food in certain ways, putting a moral bearing on everything I ate.
Looking back, I realise I was fortunate to have a relatively privileged childhood. We grew up in a white, middle-class suburb amongst the rolling Derbyshire hills and my parents worked and were happily married. My Christian upbringing, which included reluctantly helping mum to run our local Sunday school (and being rewarded with cake when I did), meant that I was exposed to the concepts of right and wrong from an early age.
I naively thought that everything was black and white, clear-cut, and linear. And yet, I struggled to apply this to my relationship with food. I was even more confused, anxious, and unhappy.
It wasn’t until I started working in Public Health that I began reflecting on how my childhood experiences influenced my behaviour. I analysed not just how I could change my relationship with food and health, but also my relationship with others.
Hands sweating, heart racing, mind whirring, I sat listening in my first induction meeting about key Public Health concepts. I felt a wave of realisation and relief wash over me as the ‘Wider Determinants of Health’ model appeared on screen:
‘What do you mean it’s not an individual’s fault?’ I questioned.
Here was someone saying plain and simply that not everything that influences our health is within our control and that some of these influences have long-term, irreversible effects. From your house, your job, your school, to that advert for the local chippy; all influence health.
For so long I assumed being healthy meant being free from disease. That it was this achievable utopian ideal that brought unending happiness. Learning about these ‘Wider Determinants’ completely challenged my assumptions about what makes us healthy, many of which were formed by my childhood and experiences of society, culture, and the media.
This meeting sparked my desire to find new ways to help my community and provide them with similar revelatory experiences. Public Health offers a wealth of opportunities to learn and expand my knowledge, and it is only through learning more that I will continually challenge my own bias and preconceptions about improving population health.
I am still driven by my values of justice and morality, but they have changed. I am now focused on driving out social injustice, tackling health inequity, and supporting people, not blaming them. Life, and health, is complex, messy, and unpredictable, and that’s okay. I am convinced that social constructs and systems are to blame; they should be the ones to change. I want to enact this change, through discovering new ways to support my community, my colleagues, my friends and my family, to live lives that are meaningful to them.
