Food plays an integral role in maintaining our health; poor diet accounts for approximately 11 million deaths worldwide annually.
With this realization comes increased experimentation with food as medicine healthcare approaches such as medically tailored meals and grocery prescription programs – RDNs leading this initiative on this emerging issue.
1. Eat Healthy Foods
Food is one of the key determinants of our overall health. A poor diet can even increase risk factors and shorten lifespan.
Diet-related diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure may be reduced or reversed with healthy eating habits; however, accessing nutritious and high-quality food sources may prove challenging for some individuals.
Food as medicine movement seeks to address this challenge by merging nutrition and healthcare together, using strategies like medically tailored meals or groceries, produce prescription programs or nutritional education classes as tools. Such programs may improve diet quality while adhering to treatment plans more successfully.
However, widespread implementation is necessary and must include coverage within national universal healthcare systems. Further research must also be conducted into the effectiveness of such diet-related interventions; to this end ASN Journals publishes original research studies and reviews that support dietitians and clinicians working on this emerging approach to healthcare. Download our Retail Nutrition Framework for RDNs to gain more insight into how food plays an integral part in providing health and wellness.
2. Exercise Regularly
Exercise should be part of your health and wellbeing routine if you want to feel your best. Exercise not only strengthens the body but can also lower stress levels, boost moods and decrease disease risks.
Though nutrition is well-established as being beneficial to general health, younger generations are now beginning to realize how a nutritious diet can treat, manage, or even reverse certain medical conditions.
Food as medicine represents an emerging trend at the intersection of nutrition and healthcare, featuring interventions such as medically tailored meals, grocery stores with produce prescription programs and classes led by registered dietitians.
People most in need of food as medicine often live at the intersection between diet-related disease and food insecurity, forcing them to make difficult trade-offs between their health and accessing enough sustenance for survival. A recent scoping review published by Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics highlights the need to develop sustainable, scalable interventions utilizing RDNs for food as medicine treatments.
3. Get Enough Sleep
Studies conducted in recent years have confirmed the correlation between sleep and all seven of the American Heart Association’s “Life’s Simple 7” cardiovascular risk factors – sufficient physical activity, healthy diet, low blood pressure levels, normal cholesterol levels, nonsmoking status and moderate alcohol consumption). Studies on sleep-diet relationships have included investigations on how different aspects – duration, timing and quality – might impact cardiometabolic health. Help advance nutrition research today by giving.
Population Healthy is here.
4. Stay Hydrated
Staying hydrated requires drinking plenty of water and selecting beverages with low sugar content, such as beverages containing tea. But beware: some beverages, including tea, may have higher amounts of calories per serving.
Food as medicine initiatives are being launched across the nation, such as food prescription programs that provide low-cost fruits and vegetables to individuals suffering from chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. These programs help patients follow doctor orders more easily while improving health outcomes; research studies have demonstrated how such initiatives can increase fruit and vegetable consumption, decrease BMI and glycated hemoglobin, as well as lower blood pressure; making these initiatives popular among healthcare professionals, patients, community organizations and hospitals alike.
5. Eat a Balanced Diet
Eating a balanced diet offers many advantages; it gives you energy, helps maintain a healthy weight, and may reduce the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Food should never replace medicine; for those living with atrial fibrillation, for instance, medication will likely be required from a healthcare professional. Furthermore, certain foods can be harmful, and consulting a nutritionist to obtain a balanced nutrition profile may be useful.
Poor diet can contribute to numerous debilitating health conditions and increase national healthcare cost burden. There are various strategies available to address the issue of poor nutrition such as Food as Medicine that provide consistent access to food- and nutrition-related resources in healthcare systems.
