In Challenges, Nova Scholar Susan Prescott and Fellow Alan C. Logan highlight the significant impacts of dietary choices on personal and planetary health.
In Oxford Research Encyclopedia’s Food Studies, Media Fellow Lela Nargi connects the dots between food and nutrition insecurity and water scarcity in the United States.
In Laws, Nova Fellow Alan C. Logan, Scholar Susan Prescott, and coauthors Colleen Berryessa and Pragya Mishra discuss the relevance of the “judicial breakfast” in a judge’s well-being and event courtroom outcomes.
In Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, Nova Scholar Susan Prescott and Fellow Alan C. Logan write a letter that responds to a study linking gut bacteria and mental health in people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
In the British Journal of Nutrition, Nova Fellow Alan C. Logan and colleague Dr. Stephen Schoenthaler respond to a systematic review of dietary interventions and inmate behavior.
In Health Research Policy and Systems, Nova Fellow Brita Roy and colleagues used group model building (GMB) to develop a systems thinking framework to describe childhood obesity in the Caribbean.
In Dietetics, Nova Scholar Susan Prescott, Fellow Alan Logan, Invited Faculty Ashka Naik, David Nelson, and Leslie Soble, and colleagues discuss the new research and the emerging field of “food crime,” focusing on the harmful effects of addictive ultra-processed foods and their links to non-communicable diseases and negative behaviors.
Nova Media Fellow Lela Nargi reports for The Guardian on the state of water quality and access in U.S. schools and daycares, where a lack of sufficient federal oversight or guidance results in contaminated water and limited access for schoolchildren and staff.
Nova Media Fellow Lela Nargi reports for The Guardian on filthy water in U.S. correctional facilities — a cruel but not unusual punishment that complicates health even after release.
In The Guardian, Nova Media Fellow Lela Nargi reports on water poverty, the myriad associated health impacts faced by U.S. farm workers, and how some communities are working to ensure access to clean water for all.
Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.
Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”
“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad.
When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.)
“When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”
Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.”
Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. “…they gradually found relief from suffering and began to exhibit emergent characteristics: a sense of hope, self-acceptance, and a desire to help others—the immediate precursors to healing.”
In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.”
Suffering is the ongoing pain from wounding.
There is some debate about whether people always experience suffering on the path to healing.
Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors.
“The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”
Characteristics: How predisposed someone may be to wounding/how many tools and resources someone may have to deal with trauma/illness.
Lifestages: Developmental timing plays an important role in the impact of trauma — young children often do not have the same resources as older adults.
Relationships: Relationships can provide solace and support for those suffering, while lack of healthy relationships can prolong suffering.
