Person

Jody Harris

Jody Harris

Honorary Associate

Jody Harris holds research leadership positions exploring the practice, politics and ethics of food and nutrition policy, with an academic background across public health nutrition and public policy.

Through her work, she brings an equity and ethics lens to understanding how people can eat healthily, from socio-political perspectives. Jody’s work investigates policy processes in international, national and local food policy contexts, and considers equity and broader ethical issues in nutrition for development, with a focus on enabling healthy diets for all. Her academic and activist background can be seen here.

In the Health and Nutrition Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies, she has focused on developing a multi-disciplinary theory of equity for nutrition, and empirical work on the right to nutrition and the politics and ethics of food and nutrition policy. Jody co-convenes the Food Equity Centre, a collaboration among leading actors in food security and social justice working to develop solutions to inequities in food systems.

Her research builds on over fifteen years of engagement in the fields of international nutrition and food policy, and both academic and implementation work in different global spaces. Jody has over 50 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and edited volumes for academic audiences which have been cited over 3000 times, and she often translates her work for policy, technical and lay audiences. She supervises PhD students with an interest in equitable food systems and public policy. Her publication record can be found on Google Scholar.

 

Research

Centre

Food Equity Centre

The Food Equity Centre exists to challenge the power and politics that make food systems inequitable. We conduct research and generate contextualized knowledge into the complex socio-economic factors that lead to certain people being unable to access affordable, nutritious food, or earn a...

Project

Ethics in the Nutrition Policy Process

The issue of power in food and nutrition governance is under-explored. This research looks at the power of international actors and the (lack of) participation of those experiencing malnutrition in the setting of nutrition policy, as ethical issues.

Opinions

Opinion

Integrating law and nutrition in Zambia

The piece reports on a recent workshop convened in Lusaka, Zambia, which shared the findings of the research project “The ‘right to nutrition’ in its social, legal and political context” and what it means for Zambia, and enabled conversations to strengthen action on a right to nutrition...

Jody Harris
Jody Harris & 2 others

8 August 2023

Opinion

Healthy diets depend on equity and justice

This week it emerged that during 10 years of austerity, the height of UK children has fallen well behind global peers, with the average British boy and girl up to 5cm shorter than their European neighbours. Children’s height is used globally as a measure of health and wellbeing, and Britain...

30 June 2023

Opinion

To leave no one behind we must focus on food equity

The theme for this year’s World Food Day (16 October) is ‘leave no one behind’. However, the leave no one behind agenda as part of the Sustainable Development Goals focuses largely on addressing deprivation and not the broader inequities - injustices and power imbalances – that drive...

Lídia Cabral
Lídia Cabral & 5 others

10 October 2022

Publications

Brief

Equitable Pathways to Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems

T20 Policy Brief

Ensuring pathways to sustainable food systems are equitable is a moral and existential imperative. Food systems are sustainable when they promote responsible use of natural resources, protect biodiversity, and mitigate the environmental impact of production, distribution, and consumption.

Lídia Cabral
Lídia Cabral & 7 others

10 September 2024

Jody Harris’s recent work

News

New IDS Bulletin on the political economy of food

This new issue of the IDS Bulletin, edited by Jody Harris, Molly Anderson, Chantal Clément and Nicholas Nisbett examines a range of perspectives on power in food systems, and the various active players, relationships, activities, and institutions that play a major role in shaping them. It...

6 August 2019