New Rochelle, NY, October 10, 2017–The "first food system" in the U.S., which calls for exclusive feeding of breast milk for an infant's first 6 months followed by the addition of nutritious foods, is fraught with injustices and social and environmental inequities that prevent many infants and caregivers from achieving these goals. A provocative new article that introduces the "first food justice movement" and proposes activism to advance food justice in theory and in practice is published in Environmental Justice, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. The article is available free on the Environmental Justice website.
In the article entitled "First Food Justice = Food Justice = Environmental Justice: A Call to Address Infant Feeding Disparities and the First Food System" Erica Morrell, PhD, Middlebury College, VT, discusses the many reasons why women may be unable to breastfeed their infants exclusively and why many infants may lack access to breast milk, including workplace policies, cultural factors, and laws against breastfeeding in public. Dr. Morrell also describes some of the first food justice movement's strategies and achievements.
"Dr. Morrell advances the concept of food justice in this watershed article," says Environmental Justice Editor-in-Chief Sylvia Hood Washington, PhD, MSE, MPH, and a LEED AP, and Sustainability Director, Environmental Health Research Associates, LLC. "Breast milk is not only the first food biologically produced specifically for infants, it is also the basis for their future immune response. Its corruption from environmental contaminants is an environmental injustice that is clearly elucidated in this article."
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About the Journal
Environmental Justice is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal encompasses study and debate on a broad range of environmental inequalities at the local, national, and global level tied to social, health, and economic equity. The Journal features studies that demonstrate the adverse effects on populations that are already at risk for health and environmental hazards, as well as the complicated issues inherent in remediation, funding, relocation of facilities that pose hazardous risk to health. Complete tables of contents and a sample issue may be viewed on the Environmental Justice website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science, medicine, biomedical research, and law, including Sustainability: The Journal of Record, Environmental Engineering Science, and Ecopsychology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers website.
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Original Source
http://www.liebertpub.com/global/pressrelease/call-to-action-on-food-justice-and-overcoming-disparities-in-infant-nutrition/2268/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/env.2017.0014