The Benefits of Prescribing Food as Medicine
To transform the health of the American population, healthy food should be something we can prescribe, writes Dr. Sadiya Khan.
Eating a healthy diet is crucial for preventing and managing chronic health conditions. The American Heart Association has identified eating better as one of the eight key factors for improving heart health. Despite this, many Americans struggle to eat well due to the complexity of nutrition advice and the perception that healthy foods are expensive.
A low-sodium diet is particularly important for managing high blood pressure, yet simply recommending it to patients is not enough to encourage adoption. A growing movement known as Food Is Medicine aims to address this issue by providing medically tailored meals that help prevent and treat chronic diseases. Research is being conducted to determine the effectiveness and cost of such programs, and medical schools are being encouraged to include more nutrition education in their curricula.
Successful population health changes, such as those seen in Finland and the U.S. regarding motor vehicle accidents, demonstrate the potential impact of broad-based, multifaceted interventions. While educating individuals about healthy nutrition is important, transforming the food environment is also crucial to improving population health.
Written by urgent.news from Time's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
