Whenever I’m in an airport I tend to let my mind
wander. Where is that person going? What are they going to
be doing there? What did they have for breakfast? While I was
waiting for my flight to Washington DC, I knew exactly where the people in the
waiting area were going- and what they were doing. They, like me, were on
their way to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Public Policy
Workshop. To put it into the Academy’s words, PPW is an ‘annual food and
nutrition advocacy summit, where you get up to date on current issues, and
learn how to become the voice of nutrition that Congress trusts.’ We
spent two days in our nation’s capital learning how to advocate for our
profession. This is my story of being there for the first time.
If anyone had told me a year ago I would be sitting in Senator
Bernie Sanders’ office discussing preventative nutrition policy and nutrition
education in the Farm Bill with his staffers, I would have said that you were
crazy. I got into policy about six months ago when I first got into the
nutrition field. I was a brand new dietitian and found myself the
Director of Nutrition for a group wellness program. The biggest deterrent
for our program is cost. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire the program
is covered in full by insurance providers, in Vermont… it’s not. After
our argument fell on deaf ears with private insurance companies, I remembered
Martha Rardin, a dietitian from my internship, speaking to us about making real
changes in our profession and legislation through advocacy. After
volunteering for the State Policy Representative position with the Vermont
affiliate of the AND, I found myself in an advocacy role. That role with
VAND is how I found myself at the Public Policy Workshop. The people that
I see for nutrition services were why.
During the 48 hours that I spent in Washington DC, I was not
alone. Sure, I was with over 300 dietitians and nutrition professionals,
and the AND armed me with everything I needed. We spent five weeks prior
to the workshop on webinars learning about how to advocate, and the issues that
we’d be focusing on. We learned about the Farm Bill and how SNAP-Ed and
EFNEP affected our lives, and we learned about how the preventative care
industry could be improved to enhance our practices. Those issues were at
the focal point of the Academy, but they are also important to me. Like I
said, while in DC, I was not alone. In my thoughts, I was also with
Michael, a gentleman who lost 50 pounds with the help of our preventative care
practice and dropped both his total cholesterol and fasting blood glucose out
of the risk ranges for chronic illness. Kathy, a new grandmother who,
after taking our 13 week class, now had the energy to play with her grandbaby
was also with me. And, I was with Kara, a single mom who put herself
first by asking for our help and now exercises on a regular basis and now feeds
her family fresh fruits and vegetables. These stories, along with the
other Vermonters who have walked through our doors were the reason why I
decided to speak up for my profession. After all, if dietitians don’t do
it - no one will.
I got to Washington DC on Sunday morning and the workshop didn’t start until
the afternoon. I went to the hotel, and my room wasn’t ready. No
problem. The Smithsonian American Art Museum was only a few blocks away
and had a courtyard where I could grab some lunch and read my book while I
waited. When I walked into the museum I realized that admission was free,
so I thought to myself ‘well, I don’t have pay, I might as well look
around.’ I wandered through and found myself looking at an exhibit about
some of the big change makers in the United States during the civil rights
movement, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and I kept hearing, as an echo in
my head, words from the book I was reading on the plane ‘When the civil rights
leaders began to force a reckoning with otherness in the 1960s, they did so in
the name of love.’1 Those that enacted, arguably, the greatest
changes in our country didn’t do it from a place of data, numbers, violence, or
outrage. They did it from a place of love. In his book, Across
That Bridge, John Lewis claims that ‘the Civil Rights Movement, above all,
was a work of love. Yet even 50 years later, it is rare to find anyone
who would use the word love to describe what we did.’2
Now, I’m not equating the advocacy of 300+ dietitians over one weekend to the
enormity of the Civil Rights Movement - not in the slightest. But, I felt
so incredibly energized knowing that the small steps that I was taking, and the
motivation behind them, were pushing me in the right direction.
With that energy, the guidance from the AND, and the view of the sun setting
over the national monuments, I was ready to charge the hill on Monday!
Vermont is lucky for a couple of reasons.
1) We’re
a tiny state. We have two Senators and one Representative, so we only had
three meetings to attend. While some would look at this as a negative -
we only got to speak to three members of congress - we chose to look at it as a
positive. For some of our Vermont team this was their third of forth time
attending so they have gotten to know the staff that we were meeting
with. Because of this, they have been able to form relationships over the
past few years. And, while we only got to speak to three members of
congress, they have large voices in the House and the Senate. So, for us,
what we were asking from our representatives reached further than that which
was provided by AND. We also got to urge them to speak up to their fellow
congress members about our issues.
And, 2) we ended up ‘preaching to the choir’ to some
extent. In Senator Leahy’s office after we landed our ask - ‘we want to
urge Senator Leahy to continue to fund the Prevention and Public Health Fund’ -
his staff member looked us in the eyes and said ‘he is’. But, it was nice
knowing that we wouldn’t run up against a wall while we were talking, and again
we got to urge them to speak to other members of congress about our issues.
I know this seems like I’m into
politics and policy a lot, but I’m not. Other than overhearing my roommates
talk about current events in the news and reading my Facebook from time to
time, I’m not super invested in politics. But I do feel a responsibility to
advocate for my profession because it is my livelihood and because I care about
the people that I work with. And, I didn’t start off by committing to go
to Washington DC for a weekend. I started small, just a few action alerts
when the emails came. But I started paying more attention until found
myself in front of the staff of Patrick Leahy talking about nutrition in
legislation and why it matters.
