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A Food is Medicine approach to achieve nutrition security and improve health

Nature Medicine volume 28, pages 2238–2240 (2022)Cite this article

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Suboptimal nutrition is a leading cause of illness, healthcare spending and lost productivity, predominantly from diet-related chronic diseases but also from undernutrition1,2. These burdens are not evenly distributed, contributing to health disparities affecting people who have lower income, are less educated and are members of minority ethnic groups, who more often have poor diets, hunger and related diseases.

Healthy foods across the lifespan are critical to achieve health and well-being for all, but few sustained healthcare or policy interventions have considered this as a priority. This is now beginning to change in the USA, with promising healthcare-anchored strategies to address food security emerging at local levels3, combined with mounting evidence about and attention to health burdens, costs and inequities attributable to poor diet quality. We highlight two major shifts toward addressing food and nutrition within health-related sectors, which are in need of acceleration.

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Fig. 1: The Food is Medicine pyramid.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH; 2R01HL115189) and a grant from Kaiser Permanente, both to D.M. The findings and conclusions of the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the US CDC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

    Dariush Mozaffarian

  2. Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Heidi M. Blanck & Ruth Petersen

  3. Center For Health Law and Policy Innovation, Harvard Law School, Boston, MA, USA

    Kathryn M. Garfield

  4. Food is Medicine Coalition, New York, NY, USA

    Alissa Wassung

Authors
  1. Dariush Mozaffarian
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  2. Heidi M. Blanck
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  3. Kathryn M. Garfield
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  4. Alissa Wassung
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  5. Ruth Petersen
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Correspondence to Dariush Mozaffarian.

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Competing interests

D.M. reports research funding from the NIH, the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Vail Innovative Global Research and the Kaiser Permanente Fund at East Bay Community Foundation; personal fees from Acasti Pharma, Barilla, Danone and Motif FoodWorks; scientific advisory board membership at Beren Therapeutics, Brightseed, Calibrate, Discern Dx, Elysium Health, Filtricine, HumanCo, January, Perfect Day and Tiny Organics, and past advisory roles at Day Two and Season Health; stock ownership in Calibrate and HumanCo; and chapter royalties from UpToDate. H.M.B. and R.P. are employees of the CDC. All other authors report no disclosures.

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Mozaffarian, D., Blanck, H.M., Garfield, K.M. et al. A Food is Medicine approach to achieve nutrition security and improve health. Nat Med 28, 2238–2240 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02027-3

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