Since beginning my journey as a physician, I’ve seen new medical advancements transform the way we treat chronic illnesses. But sometimes, one of the most important, timeless, and convenient treatments we can receive is the food on our table.
The concept of “food is medicine” is gaining momentum. While not a panacea, eating more fruits and vegetables has been shown to lower the risk of diet-related diseases, offering patients a proven approach to improving overall health and managing existing medical conditions. The challenge is, how do we get more people to include healthy foods in their diets, especially those who suffer from food insecurity in the first place?
Today, 90% of Americans don’t eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables. For families that already struggle to make ends meet, price is often the biggest barrier to accessing the healthy foods they need. Fortunately, innovative efforts are helping to get fruits and vegetables into the hands of those who need them most.
The Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP), part of the federal Farm Bill, provides funding for nutrition incentives and prescription production initiatives at the state level, allowing more communities to join the food-as-medicine movement. These investments have helped expand access to healthy foods over the past decade, but these programs need to be further expanded and improved to reach their full potential. While GusNIP is now implemented in nearly all 50 states, there are still unmet needs in communities across the country that the program could address.
Thanks to produce prescriptions, healthcare professionals can write prescriptions for produce instead of medicine. Eligible patients receive vouchers to use towards the purchase of fruits and vegetables instead, adding more healthful foods to their diet. This innovative approach is helping to expand the use of food as medicine, and has the potential to rival drug therapy for improving cardiometabolic health and diabetes outcomes.
Nutrition incentive programs such as Double Up Food Bucks also significantly increase access to healthy foods and help people reduce their risk of diet-related illnesses. This approach helps recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, get more out of their benefits by receiving $1 for every dollar they spend on fruits and vegetables at participating farmers markets and grocery stores. The result is a triple win: families eat healthier foods, farmers and retailers benefit from increased sales, and progress is made toward preventing diet-related illnesses and improving public health overall.
This approach is working: Recent analyses show that people who use nutrition incentives eat more fruits and vegetables than the average American and have improved food security. They also report that a national scale implementation of food-as-medicine initiatives could save more than $13.6 billion in health care costs. But demand for these programs is high and resources are scarce. Overwhelming demand has forced some of the partners running these initiatives to make tough choices, limiting participants’ options to conserve resources.
As Congress considers reauthorizing the Farm Bill this year, lawmakers can take action to help more families live healthier lives. More than 600 agriculture, food and health leaders have submitted proposals to expand GusNIP-funded programs to more food retailers and make it easier for more partners to participate. Ultimately, this consensus approach is a cost-effective way to increase access to fruits and vegetables for low-income children, families and seniors while helping to reduce health care costs for everyone.
Numerous members of Congress from both parties and in both chambers have introduced proposals to help make nutrition incentives and produce prescriptions benefit more families and farmers, including bills by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Alaska, and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich.
If we want to realize the full potential of using food as medicine, expanding access to healthy foods is the true cure, and now Congress has the authority to expand and improve GusNIP in the Farm Bill, helping more Americans make healthy choices and include more fruits and vegetables in their diets.
Dr. Jennifer Gruss
Dr. Jennifer Gruss is a pediatrician at Primary Healthcare in Des Moines.
This article originally appeared in the Des Moines Register: Farm bill: Food is medicine, but access is the ultimate solution
