Leeds dietician shares diabetic recipe advice as she challenges misconceptions

Ellouise Simpson is a primary care dietician and offers advice on maintaining healthy diets while eating cultural food on her Instagram.

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.

A Leeds dietician is using the power of social media to challenge the common misconception that ethnic food is unhealthy for diabetics.

Primary care dietician Ellouise Simpson, who is of Jamaican heritage, wants to help people to find ways to still enjoy much-loved cultural dishes while also managing their diabetes safely. She hopes her Instagram account – @DietitianEllouise – can get the word out to members of BAME communities who might not attend clinics or come into contact with ethnic dieticians usually.

“There needs to be more clinicians from multicultural backgrounds,” she said. “What we bring to the table is not something that you will not be taught at university. Universities do what they can – you may have some lectures on cultural meals but it's just not the same as the lived experience.

“We need to be doing things a bit differently too. Right now, we offer clinics and we find that there are not many patients from different backgrounds attending. I question why I don’t get South Asian or black patients when the rates are so much higher in these communities while they’re thinking, ‘why am I going to see someone who doesn’t understand my food?’”