During a recent event, food and health systems experts argued for a holistic approach that is needed to improve eaters’ access to nutritious food and improve community health. This webinar is the first part of a series hosted by Food Tank and the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation.
About half of all people in the United States suffer from a diet-related illness, the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University reports.
“Food is not just physical health,” Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University reminds the audience. “It’s mental health, it’s community health.”
Often, poor health is treated as an individual problem, says A-dae Romero-Briones, Vice President at the First Nations Development Institute. But this Western perspective misses the interconnectedness of individual, community, and environment. “When your community is healthy, the likelihood [is higher] that the individual in that community is healthy,” she says. “When the environment is healthy, the likelihood [is higher] the community in that environment is going to be healthy.”
This broader perspective is important when thinking about solutions that nourish eaters, says Erika Allen, CEO of Urban Growers Collective. The increasing rate of diet-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease “is environmental, it’s historic.” This means “we must address structural racism, we must address displacement of our traditional food pathways.”
Food is Medicine is increasingly gaining attention for the opportunities it presents to treat these chronic conditions. It can refer to produce prescription boxes or medically tailored meals that help to treat or prevent these conditions. But the speakers argue that the concept also encompasses so much more.
“Food is medicine cannot be separated from public health and socioeconomic challenges,” Allen states.
Kofi Essel, the Food As Medicine Director at Elevance Health and a community pediatrician by training sees Food is Medicine as a “holistic tool” that works alongside healthcare.
“We have to be aware of these other factors outside of the clinical setting, where people live, play, pray, work, eat, sleep. These environmental circumstances…are critically important,” Essel says. “The personalization of food…is really important in how we’re talking about it with our patients, our families, and our members as well.”
Recognizing the impact of education and the environments young people are raised in, some organizations are focused on engaging students in the process of growing their own food.
Chef and author Alice Waters, who founded Edible Schoolyard Project 30 years ago, believes strongly in the power of connecting children to fresh, local food. “Food is about taste. It’s about connection to the season,” she says. “Eating that way connects you to nature. That’s something that’s irresistible to children.”
School-based garden programs and nutrition education can help kids get “excited about the food they’re putting in their bodies to offset some of the chronic disease that we talk about,” says Lyndsey Waugh, Executive Director of the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation. “We know that those habits you get when you’re young, you carry into adulthood. And they really shape your future.”
To ensure these solutions—from school gardens to produce prescription boxes—benefit all eaters, partnerships will be key, says Rachel Fisher, Senior Advisor and Food is Medicine Co-lead in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She believes that everyone has a role to play.
“Food is Medicine is not a new concept,” Fisher says. “But we really need to work together and be aligned to increase access to nutritious food.”
Listen to the full conversations from Part One of “Food is Medicine and Eating for Health” or watch the replay of the event below to hear more about what a holistic approach to Food is Medicine means, how the Dietary Guidelines for Americans can be used as a tool to support eaters’ health, and the guardrails that are needed to ensure these solutions are as impactful and far-reaching as they can be.
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Photo courtesy of Ella Olsson, Unsplash
