Despite the first White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health having been held more than 50 years ago, Americans continue to face hunger and an urgent, nutrition-related health crisis.
The crisis is a rising prevalence among Americans to acquire type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension and certain cancers, according to Tuesday’s White House press release. Food insecurity and diet-related diseases are largely preventable, yet the consequences of both are significant, particularly for underserved American communities.
President Joe Biden announced a goal to end hunger, and increase healthy eating and physical activity by 2030. But the federal government cannot reach this goal alone. Tribal, local, territory governments, academia, nonprofit and community groups must act as well.
Five pillars are recognized as necessary to meet this goal:
- Improving food access and affordability, including by advancing economic security; increasing access to free and nourishing school meals; providing Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) benefits to more children; and expanding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility to more underserved populations;
- Integrating nutrition and health, including by working with Congress to pilot coverage of medically tailored meals in Medicare; testing Medicaid coverage of nutrition education and other nutrition supports using Medicaid section 1115 demonstration projects; and expanding Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries’ access to nutrition and obesity counseling;
- Empowering all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices, including by proposing to develop a front-of-package labeling scheme for food packages; proposing to update the nutrition criteria for the “healthy” claim on food packages; expanding incentives for fruits and vegetables in SNAP; facilitating sodium reduction in the food supply by issuing longer-term, voluntary sodium targets for industry; and assessing additional steps to reduce added sugar consumption, including potential voluntary targets;
- Supporting physical activity for all, including by expanding the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) State Physical Activity and Nutrition Program to all states and territories; investing in efforts to connect people to parks and other outdoor spaces; and funding regular updates to and promotion of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans; and
- Enhancing nutrition and food security research, including by bolstering funding to improve metrics, data collection and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly on issues of equity and access; and implementing a vision for advancing nutrition science.
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Rebecca Barnabi
