The End of One Thing is the Beginning of Something Else

Yesterday was big day: my last official day of university teaching, after 22 years at Queen's, plus a couple of years at the University of Toronto. I don't think the ending has begun to sink in. The emotions were pretty overwhelming.

I figure I've taught in the neighbourhood of about 10,000+ undergraduate students at Queen's, many of those in the large classes of HLTH 101, The Social Determinants of Health, which I taught for 15 years. This academic year's total was just under 300 students in three courses: HLTH 334, Health, Illness & Society (120 students) in the fall; HLTH 235, Food Systems (140 students); and HLTH 430, Critical Weight Studies (28 students) - though there was some overlap in the students in these courses, which was fun.

I first taught HLTH 430 all the way back in 2012, the same year that a new academic journal, Fat Studies, was published. The Fat Studies Reader was published just three years before, officially marking the beginning of a new field that set out to dismantle dominant beliefs about weight and diet culture and promote fat justice, fat liberation, and fat joy. Though the content of HLTH 430 was always oriented around this new field, it was never called that. Students told me that they would never sign up for a course called Fat Studies—so it became "Critical Weight Studies."

At first I was worried that it might be hard for Health Studies students to break the dominant belief that being thin=health and being fat=unhealthy. But it was surprisingly easy for them. They quickly realized many things they do (e.g., restrictive eating, obsessive exercising) in the name of health is not healthy at all, and is really about achieving and maintaining a particular body size for aesthetic reasons. The Health at Every Size movement helps to bridge that gap for them, but once the students get comfortable in the class, they even begin to accept that it is okay that not everyone values health in the same way they do. By the time they get to the end of the course, they are astonished at the pervasive fatphobia in their everyday lives and in the academic curriculum in Kinesiology and Health Studies, angry that they didn't learn some of the course content earlier, and determined that all SKHS students should take the course. However, one of the reasons the course works is that it is a seminar course, usually with 25 students, who have to read, engage and wrestle with the material. That doesn't generally happen in larger, lecture style courses. So, sadly, only a small fraction of SKHS students get an immersion in this transformative material.

I hadn't taught the course since 2019, and in the intervening years, the field grew deeper and more sophisticated, particularly in recognizing the anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism that undergrids fatphobia. When I last taught the course, the "body positivity" movement was having a moment and I had a little bit of hope that size diversity might become more widely accepted. But body positivity has been swept away by massively successful GLP-1 marketing campaigns and widespread adoption of these drugs for weight loss. Combined with social media "wellness influencers" peddling supplements and dubious diet and exercise advice, diet culture and an ultra thin body ideal seems to have a tighter grip than ever on the young women in the class. Young men are increasingly impacted too, though in different ways. It is heart-breaking.

By the end of the course, the students feel a sense of relief and release from their internalized fatphobia. It has a slightly less tight grip on them. Yesterday, in an email, a student wrote, "this course has been genuinely so healing and just having the opportunity to learn and talk about these topics openly has meant a lot to me. I know this is something I’ll continue to think about in my own life long after the course ends, and I really appreciate how much space you created for that."

Another student, who took two of my courses this year (HLTH 334 and HLTH 430), wrote a message that is reflective of others: "I’ve learned so much from your courses, especially through the knowledge and content you shared with us. In 430 in particular, the challenging conversations we had and the unfamiliar topics we explored are lessons and growth I’ll carry with me throughout the rest of my academic and professional career, as well as in my everyday life and conversations. You truly changed the way I think about our society by pushing me to reflect on my own biases and preconceived norms around body size, language, and fat phobia."

What an incredible privilege and an honour to have the opportunity to make such a profound transformative impact in the lives of young people! I will miss that.

Most of this year's HLTH 430 students, taken yesterday. Look at those smiles!

Yesterday's class was extra special because the very first graduate student I ever supervised, Andrea Kirkham, zoomed in to talk about the campaign to include size discrimination in the Ontario Human Rights Code. It seems unbelieveable, though it is true, that it is perfectly legal to discriminate against someone—in housing, in employment, in health care and everywhere else—because of their body size. I met Andrea in the early 2000s, when I was a faculty member at the University of Toronto. She went on to do a powerful and profound master's degree about "non-dieting" as it was called then. And another former graduate student, Mary Rita Holland, also joined in by zoom to hear Andrea and talk about her experience of teaching the fat studies course at Mt. St. Vincent University.

Andrea had prepared remarks about the influence I had on her, and on others through her. She moved me to tears—and then Mary Rita joined in with eloquent impromptu remarks. It was all very overwhelming. Extraordinary. An extra special ending.

Flowers from the HLTH 430 students

I got hugs from each of the students as they left.

And then I moved on to the Food Systems class. (Mondays have been brutal this term, with two classes back-to-back).

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I've taught the Food Systems course four times before. It's a fairly depressing course because the industrialized food system is built on injustice, rife with abuse of human and non-human animals, and a key contributor to the planetary crises of environmental destruction (including the Amazon), biodiversity loss, and climate chaos. With oil at its centre, making the whole system run, some of the key themes of the course have been playing out in the news. Guardian columnist George Monbiot basically wrote much of my last lecture in his recent article, describing the vulnerability of a system built on oil and controlled by a few corporations. He described, but didn't use, one of the key terms from the course, oligopoly. Such a fun word to say, but it has a sobering meaning, especially when it comes to the food system. I'm glad the course has ended before the worst of the fuel inflation hits the world, precipitating yet another global food crisis.

In the Monday lectures, I would include a section called "in the news" about food system related news. One student told me that she doesn't follow the news and how much enjoyed this. But a few weeks ago, when a student came up to me at the end of class and asked how I managed to stay optimistic, I decided I needed to lighten up a bit. The next week, I declared a "bad news moratorium" and instead talked about the signs of spring in the "in the news" section of class, notably, the emerging crocuses and the racous bird life. To hold and witness the horrors and darkness of our messed up world, we really need to ground ourselves, and find moments of joy in each day. And sometimes declare a bad news moratorium.

For my last time teaching the Food Systems course, I decided to change the format! It felt a bit risky, but the risk paid off. The class consists of two 75-minute sessions, and recently timetabling changed the requirement that both classes have to be in the same room. So, this year, I taught one class in a large (horrible) auditorium (see below), and for the other class, on Fridays, I used "active learning" classrooms, where students get to sit at tables of 7-8 and—gasp—talk with each other. The students loved the Friday classes more than I could have imagined. I also loved it—partly because I had less prep to do, but mostly because it was more informal and interactive. I had conversations with the students and got to know more of their names than ever before. Two students told me that had become good friends since their conversations together on Fridays.

Humphrey Auditorium (not so many students showed up for the final lecture)

In the active learning classroom, students were expected to do a writing reflection on a reading or a film, and then discuss it with their table mates. I have really enjoyed reading students' regular reflections and getting to know them more than I otherwise would. Last Friday, I assigned them Robin Wall Kimmerer's 2022 essay, The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance about the gift economy, which is based on abundance, generosity, gratitude, and reciprocity. The students' responses to the questions I suggested they answer and discuss were incredibly revealing, hopeful, and heart-warming.

In response to a question about the gift they have to offer the world, one student said: "Growing up in a capitalist economy, it almost feels illegal to think about my gift that I can offer because we are so used to criticizing ourselves, to improve and be perfect." Another said, "My love language is acts of service. I love to cook for my friends, hold the door open for strangers, or lend a helping hand. I want to continue to give back little acts of kindness with no expectation of anything in return."

Another question asked about the elements of a "more beautiful world" that they would like to see. One student wrote:

• taking care of the earth for future generations

• peace (no war)

• kindness

• happiness

• access to the social determinants of health for everyone (education, food, housing, health care)

• equality (no social/economic hierarchies)

For my last class yesterday, my SKHS colleagues—faculty and staff—surprized me by showing up en mass. Even my recently retired colleague, Mary Louise, (who is directly responsible for me applying for this job way back in 2004) joined via FaceTime from France, where she is doing a 7-week walk along ancient pilgramage routes. The Director of the School, Sammi King, gave a short speech. Sammi and I both cried.

And after class, a long line of students came to express their apppreciation and wish me well for retirement. I even got more hugs!

Extraordinary. How lucky I am. I've only just begun to process it all. Probably the reality won't really hit until September.