Ep. 90: Partnering with Teachers for Protective Nutrition Education with Gwen Kostal
Anna L. and Elizabeth chat with Gwen Kostal, a Registered Dietitian who helps teachers and educators teach about food safely in the classroom. When Gwen first started out as a dietitian, she was trained to contribute to diet culture, encourage weight loss, recommend restrictions, and talk to kids about how to choose the “best” foods. When she realized that this is not appropriate or helpful for kids Gwen setup Dietitians 4 Teachers to help teachers find meaningful language and lessons that link to the curriculum and make life easier while making the classroom safer.
They discuss:
- Examples of diet culture in schools and the harm it can cause.
- Strategies to approach teachers to discuss concerns about diet culture in education.
- Some resources for teachers to get diet culture out of schools.
- Changes that need to be made to nutrition curricula to eliminate diet culture messaging.
- How parents can support teachers in getting diet culture out of the classroom.
Links:
- Dietitians4Teachers website
- Lutz, Alexander & Associates Nutrition Therapy
- Pinney Davenport Nutrition
- https://thirdwheeled.com/
- https://m8.design/
- https://www.sonics.io/
Gwen Kostal is an Ontario dietitian who runs Dietitians 4 Teachers (D4T). D4T supports educators through education, training and safer resources for use in classrooms to approach food and health conversations with less harmful diet messages. Gwen also works as a healthcare leader in Ontario, focusing on improving systems and helping teams make changes. Gwen works with many groups of educators from all over the country doing education, training, and creating safer resources for use in classrooms. What started as an Instagram account to start a conversation has grown to become a platform to support teachers and educators with a very important unlearning – getting dieting out of schools to keep kids safe! Check out Dietitians4Teachers on Instagram and Facebook (@dietitians4teachers) and at her website (www.dietitians4teachers.ca) to learn more about what she does.