49: "Anti-Facism is Public Health" with Humaira Mayet

Today I'm talking to the incredible Humaira Mayet, a dietitian and activist interested in how racism and imperialism have shaped the profession. We cover so much in this episode, including:

👉 Humaira's Master’s thesis, which explores the experiences of South Asian Muslims navigating cardiometabolic disease in the UK, as well as the impact of Islamophobia and structural racism in healthcare

👉 The true meaning of 'decolonisation' and how the health and nutrition sphere has coopted the term for tools like the EatWell plate

👉 Surveillance and profiling in society, such as Prevent Duty, and how it plays out on the body, as it transfers from state- to self-surveillance

👉 The life-affirming work of anti-facism and how public health is really about safeguarding populations and reaffirming their right to life

👉 Plus, as always, what we're snacking on atm

Enjoy the episode!

Episode Transcript

Intro

Laura: Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about food, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I’m Laura Thomas, I’m a weight-inclusive registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter.

Today I’m talking to my friend Humaira Mayet. Humaira (who uses they/them pronouns)  is a dietitian and activist interested in how racism and imperialism have shaped the profession. Their research focusses on Islamophobia within nutritional epistemologies, and the links between the war on obesity and the war on terror. Prior to training as a dietitian, they worked in the peace and justice sector, supporting student activists on British campuses with running university divestment campaigns against the arms trade.

We cover so much in this episode. Humaira talks us through the findings of their Master’s thesis, which explored experiences of South Asian Muslims navigating cardiometabolic disease in the UK. Subsequently we cover the impact of Islamophobia and structural racism in healthcare. Humaira gives us their brilliant definition of ‘decolonisation’ and we look at how the health and nutrition sphere has co-opted the term for tools like the EatWell plate. We also cover surveillance and profiling in society, such as Prevent Duty, and how it plays out on the body, as it transfers from state to self-surveillance. Humaira brilliantly articulates their belief that public health is really about safeguarding populations and reaffirming their right to life, and that anti-facist work is life-affirming. And as always we also share what we’re snacking on at the moment.

Before we get to Humaira I want to remind you that the Can I Have Another Snack? universe is entirely listener and reader supported. For £5 a month or £50 for the year, you can access exclusive All of the Snacks podcast episodes with myself and Lucy Dearlove, you can read my responses to reader questions in our monthly Dear Laura column, and you can join our private Discord server to talk to other folks in the CIHAS fam. Head to canihaveanothersnack.com to upgrade your subscription and access those cool perks.

Alright team, here’s Humaira Mayet.

Main Episode

Laura: So Humaira, as I sent over your questions yesterday, I actually had the realisation to myself that, like, a lot of shit has gone down in the world in the past, I mean, definitely six months or so, but, like, specifically the past 48 hours, and I wondered if it would be helpful to just kind of situate ourselves in where we are meeting each other in terms of the political landscape at the moment.

So for the listeners, we're recording this kind of towards the end of January. Trump just got inaugurated, inaugurated? I can't say that word. For his second term. And we've also just entered a ceasefire, a very tentative, fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the day before that. So there's a lot going on and I don't know about you, but everything has felt very close to the surface for me over the past kind of, especially 48 hours.

We've seen a complete attack, assault, on the rights of trans people, on migrants and refugees coming into the US. We've seen Elon Musk do a Nazi salute and people kind of just like, laughing it off. We've seen Trump roll back sanctions on Israeli settlers in occupied territories and we've just seen immense joy and an almost bottomless pit of grief coming out of Palestine.

So I just wanted to kind of preface the conversation with all of that and also just check in with you to see how you're doing because you're very politically active, and I know that Gaza and, well, Palestinian solidarity is something close to your heart.

So yeah, how are you doing?

Humaira: I think you've really summed up how I'm feeling. So, I have felt both immense joy, and with an outpouring of grief as well. So to kind of situate my own kind of temporality in all of this is, Gaza has a confirmed ceasefire as of Sunday. And I also have, last week, attended my graduation ceremony.

And just the kind of collective, I've been reflecting a lot on, on what success looks like, right? What, what victory looks like, both for me as an individual organiser and academic, as well as the kind of collective. And so there's been, like I said, an immense amount of joy, but also remembering who we lost in order to get here. And so in particular, the memory of Hind Rajab, as well as Dr. Al Arez and Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, who were both faculty members of the institution that I got my training from, kind of weigh very heavily on me in this moment. And so there's joy and there's also grief and then as you mentioned, Trump's just been inaugurated.

I found out some very worrying news about the fact that the United States of America has already pulled out of the World Health Organisation as well as the climate, I think the international climate...

Laura: Paris, yeah.

Humaira: We're about to see, I think, some very silly things happen over the next four years.

And again, yeah, holding like my trans siblings, my queer siblings, obviously as well. What happens in America impacts the rest of the world. So, watching very mindfully and gearing up for a continuation of a fight that we've been having in relation to human rights in the UK as well.

Laura: Yeah. A hundred percent. And we will talk more specifically about the UK context a little later on in the conversation. But yeah, just holding all of the, the grief, the joy, the, you know, you said silliness coming out of America. I'm like, there's fear and terror and it's also that thing of not falling into despair and kind of being immobilised. And yeah, thinking about, you know, how are we going to fight this, like, in our immediate communities and, you know, holding close to home.

The people that we care about identifying, you know, who we're going to support with our time, our energy, our resources, our finances, all of that kind of stuff. 

So, okay. I wonder if, like, to open up the conversation and what I asked you to come here. To talk about today, if you could tell us a little bit more about who you are, maybe a bit of your background.