38: LGBQ+ Health and Food Security with James Gibb

Food security is a topic that's very close to my heart, in part because of how complex and varied experiences of food access, affordability, and availability can be. This week, we're breaking down food security amongst LGBTQ+ communities with James Gibb. James is currently a human biology graduate student at the University of Toronto, whose research focuses on the biocultural forces affecting health and wellbeing for sexual and gender minorities (SGMs). In this interview, we explore the ways in which food and diet impact health outcomes for sexual and gender minorities. Nutrition is an important factor that influences individual risk for a number of non-communicable diseases, specifically in preventing morbidity and premature mortality. Despite food insecurity being linked to a number of physical and mental health outcomes, James has found that there is little research hon the nature of nutritional health for SGMs. We explore some of the reasons that these gaps in research and health programming exist, and James makes some suggestions about how we can start to connect nutrition, health, and the social processes of stigma, isolation, and discrimination for SGM communities.