On Wednesday, the United States Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) held the first ever “Food is Medicine” Summit, which focused on ways to increase access to healthy foods to promote “health as a preventative and healing practice.” Arguably, the biggest headlines that came out of the meeting centered on three new public-private partnerships into which the Biden administration is entering.
As Salon Food reported, the Rockefeller Foundation is going to collaborate with the HHS "to identify how food-based programs can lead to better health outcomes in marginalized communities." Feeding America and the Biden administration will work together to provide expanded food bank access, while "Insatcart will use its advocacy to expand access to healthy food."
In a release, the HHS, which is led by Secretary Xavier Becerra, who champions the “food is medicine” effort, said that "food is a powerful tool for preventing and managing health conditions, and HHS’s ‘Food is Medicine’ summit will examine the broad range of approaches that promote health … through nutritious food."
Public-private partnerships, especially in the realm of food security, are always an interesting endeavor, simply because hunger is such a pervasive issue in the United States; that’s why previous initiatives, such as the USDA’s Farm to School program, which promotes collaboration between schools and local farmers to provide fresh produce to students, have generally enjoyed bipartisan support. What is more interesting, however, is how and why the “Food is Medicine” initiative was started — and how the impetus behind the program seems to stand in sharp contrast to current conservative-led efforts to throttle anti-hunger programs like WIC and SNAP.
In September 2022, the Biden administration held the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, ultimately issuing a call to action to, per the HHS, “end hunger and reduce the prevalence of chronic disease in the United States by 2030.” The department built on this collective energy to develop a “Food is Medicine” initiative.
“Food is Medicine approaches that focus on integrating consistent access to diet- and nutrition-related resources are a critical component to achieve this goal,” the department wrote in their description of the project. “The approaches are increasingly present across many communities and systems. There’s also increasing federal investment and action to support Food is Medicine approaches in a variety of settings.”
How this looks in action will be different based on the communities in which programs are implemented; for instance, last summer, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Indian Health Service, awarded $2.5 million in funding to support the development of produce prescription programs in tribal communities. The purpose of the IHS Produce Prescription Pilot Program is to help reduce food insecurity in Native American and indigenous communities by increasing access to traditional foods and produce.
“Food is medicine and nutrition is health. It is critical that all Americans have access to healthy food,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said at the time. “Programs like this feed directly into our Administration’s goal of building healthier communities at the local level.”
In a document outlining the framing language and principles of the “Food is Medicine” approach, the HHS writes that a food is medicine initiative: recognizes that nourishment is essential for good health, wellbeing and resilience; facilitates easy access to healthy food across the health continuum in the community; cultivates understanding of the relationship between nutrition and health; unites partners with diverse assets to build sustained and integrated solutions; and invests in the capacity of under-resourced communities.
As Politico reported last November, The White House last year pledged billions to the movement, “and several state Medicaid programs are piloting such efforts. Backers say the programs — which don’t necessarily have a standard definition — can help prevent or treat some conditions and bolster health equity.”
Current data really drives home why addressing food insecurity is so critical. As Salon Food reported late last year, just a few days before Thanksgiving, new data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey showed that nearly 28 million people reported experiencing food scarcity in October — both the highest number of 2023 and the highest number recorded by the survey since December 2020.
Meanwhile, according to the HHS, “about half of all American adults — or 117 million individuals — have one or more preventable chronic disease, many of which are related to poor-quality eating patterns and physical inactivity. These include cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and poor bone health.”
Lower food security is associated with higher probability of chronic disease diagnosis — including hypertension, coronary heart disease, hepatitis, stroke, cancer, asthma, diabetes, arthritis, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and kidney disease. Additionally, nearly $173 billion a year “is spent on health care for obesity alone.”
However, despite all the evidence suggesting how much of an impact connecting Americans with nutritious, culturally-appropriate food could have, two of the most important anti-hunger programs in the United States have come under increased fire from conservative lawmakers.
Last year, in a concession to avoid a default crisis, President Biden folded to Republican pressure and shifted the work eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP). Prior to the pandemic, people younger than 50 who met certain requirements had to volunteer, work or receive job training for 80 hours a month in order to receive regular assistance. The new budget cuts package raised the age of recipients required to work to 55 and, according to The Center for Public Integrity, made it harder for states to waive work rules in areas with high unemployment.
Coming into 2024, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, may not receive the funding it needs to adequately serve participants. In a December press release, the USDA itself wrote that WIC costs are higher this year than last year, in part because more eligible people are signing up for the program meaning, per the organization, that “more pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and children are getting access to nutritious food and important health resources they need to thrive”
However, they still haven’t received the estimated $1 billion needed to address the greater level of need, and if they don’t, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, said in December that states will face “difficult, untenable decisions about how to manage the program” — something even select public-private partnerships likely can’t rectify.
