Jessica Wilson, MS. RD. (she/her)
Dietitian. Author. Community Organizer.
Jessica Wilson, MS, RDN (she/her) is a co-creator of the Amplify Melanated Voices challenge that went viral in 2020. She is a clinical dietitian, consultant and author, whose experiences navigating the dietetic fields as a Black, queer dietitian have been featured on public radio shows and in print media, including the New York Times, Bustle, and Cronkite News.
Jessica has worked as a clinical dietitian since 2007 and is acutely aware of how both the public health and medical framing of “healthy eating” and “obesity” has contributed to disordered eating and self blame. Jessica co-hosted My Black Body Podcast, which changed the conversation about who have eating disorders and how treatment fails so many people.
She speaks openly and candidly about the harm caused to people by designating individual identities and bodies as risk factors, rather than targeting the structural inequities and violence that marginalized individuals must endure and which contribute to whether we fall into the social construction of Health. She organizes and energizes communities, both small and large, and is a leader in the conversation to deconstruct the narratives we have all been told about our bodies.
Her book, It’s Always Been Ours; Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies was published on February 7, 2023 in Hardcover, Audio and eBook. You can order it here!
Jessica was born in Sacramento, CA, the Tribal land of the Nisenan people, and after living elsewhere for 14 years she returned to the city that she now calls home. She got her start in organizing community members during her time living in Oakland, CA and went on to lead international conversations about what is broken in the ways that we tend to bodies.
She comes from a long lineage of family members on her father’s side who have a connection to the land. Her father grew up spending summers on his grandmothers farm gardening, farming and picking cotton on the adjacent property. Both he and Jessica have always found a way to tend a garden and get their hands dirty.
Features
FAQs
HOW DID YOU COME TO This WORK?
Since working in the eating disorder field I have often been the only person of color in a room full of clinicians, researchers, and activists. I have been dismissed when raising concerns about our blind spots and biases, and asking the field to recognize who is consistently absent from the table and wonder why. As such, I am passionate about advocating for my clients who have not felt seen nor heard during their recovery as their bodies don’t conform to society’s images of malnourished bodies. I believe it is my responsibility to call for the advancement of our field so that we can better care for those who often don't see themselves represented in our society and in our work.
WHY community organizing?
Bodies are inherently political, especially those that don’t conform to what society deems worthy and desirable. I have seen the positive impact that comes from people daring to demand they be seen and heard. Anytime someone disrupts the dominant narrative about bodies, it is activism. Being visible is often our biggest act of resistance.
ARE YOU A HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE(R) (HAES) PROVIDER?
I am a HAES-informed provider but I am not a HAES provider. I am grateful for the HAES model and the alternative narrative it provides about weight and health, as I am grateful to the fat activists, clinicians, and community members who started and continue the HAES movement. I coauthored the revised HAES Principles in 2014, though since then have not been able to reconcile my concerns that the model makes Health a goal, accomplished through principles. It also became clear, through a variety of channels, that HAES was not conceptualized in an intersectional framework and struggles to resonate with marginalized individuals. As such, I use different language, rooted in lived experienced rather than research. Instead of using a model, I leave space for folks to find their own path to freedom.
DO YOU USE INTUITIVE EATING?
No. I do not believe that we achieve freedom from the rigidity and pressures of diet culture and body appraisal if we then adopt 10 principles with which we guide our eating instead. I ask us all to fully divest from the notion that we should be analyzing our eating habits day-to-day and assessing whether they fit within certain parameters and paradigms. I ask clinicians to sit with the discomfort of not providing a specific road map for individuals seeking a different path, and instead I invite us all to join our clients on their own journey. When we strip away structure, checks and balances, we’re able to see what’s truly there, and that’s a space from which to move forward.
HOW CAN I COMPENSATE YOU?
Folks who are interested in supporting my work on social media, funding new projects and subsidizing the work I do with marginalized communities can send payment to Venmo: jessicawilsonMSRD; PayPal: jessicawilson.msrd@gmail.com