About Ethics in Nutrition

I'm Amelia McNew, PhD and I have bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in nutrition science.

My dissertation critically analyzed 13 commercially published diet books marketed to people with multiple sclerosis. I used narrative inquiry and Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis through a relational disability theory to examine how the books told stories about disability, chronic disease, food as medicine, and the healing power of diets. That research culminated in six themes that together, converge as a new theoretical framework for understanding wellness: wellgenics.

I am a nutrition scientist and I have lived most of my life with chronic illness and disability. I have spent years on both sides of wellness culture — first, as a consumer who believed the promises and spent decades attempting to cure myself; then as a researcher trained to see the architecture behind the claims as well as the flimsy nature of its supposed scientific foundation. I know what these books feel like when the reader is vulnerable and scared, and I know what they look like under scientific scrutiny.

Ethics in Nutrition is where I publish scholarly work: critical analysis of wellness texts, reviews of published nutrition research, and ongoing research through my Wellgenics Study. My work is guided by the prima facie ethical principles of autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence, informed by a relational theory of disability that values all bodies.

I don't sell wellness plans or diets. I am not building a 'platform.' I don't accept industry funding. I don't give personalized advice. My research here and my analysis at Factual Wellness exist because the people targeted by wellness rhetoric deserve critical analysis of what's being sold to them: commerce, not care.