School of Nutrition

History of Home Economics

In citing the range of credentialing and practice opportunities for graduates, the "home economics" roots of the program are evident. Home Economics began in the 1880's, under the leadership of Ellen Swallow Richards who, as a female chemistry professor at MIT, was relegated to the "Women's Laboratory" where testing for food adulteration and other public health problems were top on the agenda. It was at a series of conferences held at Lake Placid in the 1890's that the field was conceived and named "home economics". The name "human ecology" was the alternate choice. Currently the Deans and Directors of 21 such programs across Canada meet under the name of "Nutrition and Human Ecology."

The leaders of the field in Canada at the turn of the 20 the century included Lillian Massey Treble, whose Household Science Building, donated to the University of Toronto, now houses Ontario's Ombudsperson Office as well as Club Monaco. As a woman of wealth and charitable inclination, Lillian Massey, was moved by urban poverty and the needs of massive numbers of immigrants who came to Toronto a century ago. Adelaide Hoodless, a less wealthy but equally dedicated leader, derived her passion from the tragic death of her son, caused by contaminated milk. It was her "feminine wiles", as one author cites, that allowed her to extract donations from the MacDonald tobacco family, to create MacDonald Colleges at both the University of Guelph and McGill. While "home economics" has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – its name now non-existent in all 21 programs across Canada, and the Canadian Home Economics Association having been disbanded in 2003 – the mission of the field is alive in many forms. Family studies and health promotion are two examples.

Dietetics, as a profession was linked to the evolution of home economics, in that the university programming was often interdependent. At the same time, it was the need to produce healthy young soldiers for war, and to feed them while in battle, that were key factors in the early evolution of nutrition and food sciences. Not surprisingly then, the first and second world wars saw the creation of dietetics as a profession, with strong ties to both medicine and business. It was not until 1993, after the opening of the Health Disciplines legislation in 1983, that dietetics became one of the professions governed by Ontario's Regulated Health Professions Act. Midwifery and Nursing are governed by this legislation as well.

While home economics (or human ecology) is described in order to explain the early structural and philosophical foundations of the School of Nutrition, it is the evolution of dietetics and health promotion since the 1980's that has shaped the programming of recent years. The fact that dietetics became one of the regulated health professions during the 1983-1993 period marked a profound change – not only for the profession of dietetics – but also for the definition of "health." When health legislation was opened earlier, in the '70's, dietetics practice was simply not viewed as related to "health." This could have been related to the high ratio of "food service" to "clinical" practitioners, but it also likely reflects a change in the definition of health.

The World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health in the '80's came to include the physical, mental, spiritual and social aspects of health. Canada’s Lalonde Report (1974), which presaged and influenced WHO thinking, also identified four aspects of health intervention. Two of these were familiar (1) the biological and genetic aspects of health, and (2) health care services. The other two were ground-breaking (3) environmental factors and (4) lifestyle factors. The evolution of health promotion in the 1980's strengthened and debated these themes, with the tension between lifestyle and environmental factors embodying the political debates around individual responsibility, government abdication, social Darwinism, and blaming the victim.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1984), drafted by Health Canada, the Canadian Public Health Association, and the WHO, was another seminal document in the field of health education, practice and policy. Health resources were identified to include peace, food, shelter, health services and education. Strategies for health promotion included (1) personal skill development, (2) environmental resources, (3) community building, (4) public policy, and (5) social support.

Food banks appeared in North America in the mid-'80's, for the first time since the depression. "First world hunger" had emerged, and infant mortality rates in the US began to rise, with Reagan's neoconservative agenda. Immigration from non-European countries, began to test Canada’s commitment to a "mosaic" rather than a "melting pot." The term "food security", first understood in terms of global redistribution of food between the "world wars" became a contested arena for dietetics in the '80's, but one that was embodied both in its knowledge base and practice, by the '90's.

At Ryerson, the Home Economics program of the early '50's included programs that are currently in separate Schools and Faculties: Early Childhood Education, Fashion, and Hospitality and Tourism Management. Given the history of the Nutrition and Food program, it is no surprise that interdisciplinary studies and inter-school collaboration is a normal modus operandi. Up until the early '80's, half the graduates of the program would enter teaching careers, and half would enter dietetics and other food professions. By 2000, the dominant interest among program applicants became "nutrition". The diversity of career options available from the program, in contrast to the limited and dominant attention by students toward nutrition/dietetic careers, provides one of the most complex challenges for the school.