Author: Huang Nina
Northwest Asia Weekly
Provided by Sunrise Nutrition
“In Asian communities, food is a language of love. Food is how we connect with culture,” Mindy Lu said.
In the western food world and field, people don’t talk about this, but in the Asian community, food is how we communicate our feelings to each other.
Think about how Asians celebrate Chinese New Year with a feast and how each dish has a specific meaning, food is an integral part of Asian culture, it’s how we connect with tradition and with each other, so build a good relationship with food and Contact is important, Lou said, and we have fond memories.
Lu, LMHC, CN is the clinical director, therapist and nutritionist of Sunrise Nutrition in Seattle’s East Lake community. Born and raised in Seattle, her culture is rooted in Taiwan. Her specialty is eating disorders and body image in the Asian community.
Lu said the scope of practice for a dietitian or dietitian is quite large. Generally speaking, it is anything related to food, the act of food, or a person’s relationship to food.
“Sometimes our relationship with food is related to body image. While body image falls under the therapist’s domain, it is directly related to the relationship with food,” she said.
Lu is professionally trained to see patients in both areas. Her expertise is the relationship with food, behavioral and emotional experiences surrounding food, and what’s involved in the food decision-making process.
“Food is never just about food. It’s not just about what goes in and out. It’s about relationships,” she said.
Lou pursued the field of nutrition because she wanted to learn more about what she could do for her personal physical goals, and then during her training she learned how harmful and oppressive the thinking and narrative surrounding food can be.
“I love this job because I’m doing a job that I want to be around when I’m young. I want Mindy, 12, to have someone ask her if she wants to continue this diet and tell her no, don’t,” she said.
Lu is passionate about the intersection of nutrition, food culture, racism and eating disorders.
“Asian Americans are one of the most underdiagnosed groups of eating disorders. I see this a lot in my practice because there isn’t enough awareness around. People of all skin colors should have a good relationship with food,” she said .
Many of her clients are ashamed of rice and noodles, she said.
“Rice and noodles are fine,” Lu said.
“I see this reflected in our dominant culture as well, like, ‘I love rice, but it should be bad for me.’ I encourage Asian communities to believe that all food has a time and a place,” she said.
She added that there is a wide variety of Asian foods, with all kinds of rice: white rice, brown rice, multigrain, barley, millet and a variety of other different grains. This idea that Asian food is not as healthy as other foods is not true because there is no research to prove it.
Lu saw a lot of racism in Western medicine, nutrition education and policy.
“Western nutrition is rooted in white supremacy and colonialism, and they have not been educated in Asian communities that live on a variety of foods,” she said.
She always tells her Asian clients that the food they grew up deserves space and it’s great value here.
“A factor that increases the risk of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or osteoporosis is the stress of being Asian American in a white-centric world,” she added.
Access to healthcare is another factor that affects a person’s health, Lu said.
“Many Asian-Americans don’t have access to health care, which actually leads to more diseases of our concern,” she said.
“It’s not about food, it’s more about access. Wellness is much more than what we put in our bodies. It’s about access to exercise, resources and health care,” she said.
Lu said she had a patient who had been on a vegan diet for six months and had no change in their cholesterol. This is because cholesterol is linked to genetics.
She also said that there are many disadvantages to pursuing weight loss. She has done a lot of research on this topic and the science of weight loss is interesting because when we are undernourished it puts our body in stress mode (fight or flight mode) and increased stress can lead to diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes etc.
In the Asian American community, there is external pressure that unless you fit an Asian American body, you are not actually Asian American.
“There’s a lot of physical diversity, and I see a lot of people wanting to diet or lose weight to fit that stereotype,” she says.
Lu said that Western research on nutrition has obliterated or excluded the Asian experience. She mentioned the racist origins of body mass index (BMI). BMI is part of the healthcare system, but was created in the 1800s by a mathematician and astronomer who thought it would be interesting to plot the height and weight of Scottish/French men into a bell curve to find a formula. He did some calculations and came up with BMI. Fast forward to the 20th century, and US insurance companies needed to find a way to collect premiums, so they used the BMI formula. BMI is not based on reliable research as it is derived from the graphical whites on the bell curve.
“This has ruled out the Asian American experience, and beyond that, who does these studies? I’d love to see studies that focus on the Asian experience, but haven’t found it yet,” Lu said.
Nutrition can be very complex, but there is time and space for all foods, and a varied diet is important.
Nina can be contacted at info@nwasianweekly.com.
