During a recent event, food and health systems experts argued for a holistic approach that is needed to improve eaters’ access to nutritious food and improve community health. This webinar is the first part of a series hosted by Food Tank and the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation.

About half of all people in the United States suffer from a diet-related illness, the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University reports.

“Food is not just physical health,” Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University reminds the audience, regarding the connection between improving community health and food access. “It’s mental health, it’s community health.”

Often, poor health is treated as an individual problem, says A-dae Romero-Briones, Vice President at the First Nations Development Institute. But this Western perspective misses the interconnectedness of individual, community, and environment. “When your community is healthy, the likelihood [is higher] that the individual in that community is healthy,” she says. “When the environment is healthy, the likelihood [is higher] the community in that environment is going to be healthy.”

This broader perspective is important when thinking about solutions that nourish eaters, says Erika Allen, CEO of Urban Growers Collective. The increasing rate of diet-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease “is environmental, it’s historic.” This means “we must address structural racism, we must address displacement of our traditional food pathways.”

Food is Medicine is increasingly gaining attention for the opportunities it presents to treat these chronic conditions. It can refer to produce prescription boxes or medically tailored meals that help to treat or prevent these conditions. But the speakers argue that the concept also encompasses so much more.

“Food is medicine cannot be separated from public health and socioeconomic challenges,” Allen states.

Kofi Essel, the Food As Medicine Director at Elevance Health and a community pediatrician by training sees Food is Medicine as a “holistic tool” that works alongside healthcare.

Read the full article about improving health through food by Elena Seeley at Food Tank.