“Food is medicine”: PHI Statement on White House Commitment to Ending Hunger by 2030

Statement from Amy DeLisio, MPH, RDN, Director of the Center for Wellness and Nutrition at the Public Health Institute

“PHI and our Center for Wellness and Nutrition enthusiastically welcome and support President Biden’s commitment, announced today, to ending hunger and diet related disease by 2030 through policies and systems change, which will be kicked off at the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, Hunger, and Health in 2022.

“This federal commitment presents an opportunity to shift our current health care model to focus more funding on prevention instead of treatment, and to commit in policy and practice to making sure that every person can access healthy, affordable food. Low resourced families and individuals are making impossible choices every day on how to stretch their limited dollars to buy healthy food, pay bills or fill their prescriptions.

“The Public Health Institute Center for Wellness and Nutrition is a national leader in developing campaigns, programs, and partnerships to prevent diet related illness, increase access to healthy food, and promote equity in vulnerable and systemically excluded communities across the country.

“We believe all people have a right to be food secure with access to quality nutrition and safe places to be physically active. We support access to healthy, nutritious, culturally appropriate foods and beverages and identifying the root causes to reduce the systemic causes that are driving these health and nutrition inequities. Policies, practices, and structural barriers affect individual and community health, and we must center community voices to create sustainable solutions.

“We look forward to joining the experts and leadership at the conference and listening sessions to help propose and implement the solutions that we know keep families and children healthy. Food is medicine, and we need to supplement nutritious foods through government programs including Produce Rx programs for Medi-Care and Medi-caid members, expanded and accessible SNAP incentive programs, and free healthy school meals for all students, along with restrictions on advertising to children, school physical activity policies and programs, and soda/sugar sweetened beverage taxes.”

“By working together, we can create a more equitable, healthy, and thriving nation.”