Healthy Food in Health Care

© Can Stock Photo / megija

In the United States, leading causes of hospitalizations, health care costs, and death are directly linked to poor diets. But food quality cannot be judged only by the nutritional value of what someone eats. Driven by food production policies, programs and practices, the dominant industrial food system damages human health and the environment in other ways too. While producing a surfeit of cheap food much of which is of poor nutritional quality, the food system relies on hazardous synthetic pesticides, fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, antibiotics, and hormones, as well as low-wage laborers who face unsafe working conditions. Common food production practices pollute air and water and drive climate change. We know that with dietary changes, reduced food waste and changes in production practices we can feed a growing global population in a sustainable way that better supports human and environmental health.

With leadership and expertise from Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Health Care (HFHC) program, dedicated staff at health care facilities across North America are implementing policies and programs that support sustainable food systems. Using an environmental nutrition framework that includes the entire food value chain, they leverage their respected voices, purchasing power, investments and other assets to develop food systems that conserve and renew natural resources, advance social justice and animal welfare, build community wealth and resilience, and fulfill the food and nutrition needs of all eaters now and into the future.

The health care sector can help ensure that food systems “do no harm.” Partnering with more than 1,000 hospitals across North America, the HFHC program advocates on the local, state, and national level for:

• People and planet-friendly food • Healthy food and communities • Food policy action to support sustainable food systems

Through regional innovation hubs, we work with hospitals and communities to implement successful strategies for food system improvement, including developing innovative plant-forward menus and local and sustainable food purchasing. Hospitals that want additional tools and resources to prioritize healthy food in health care, develop cost-effective sustainability initiatives throughout hospital operations, and benchmark their success become Practice Greenhealth members. Practice Greenhealth is the leading membership and networking organization for sustainable health care, delivering environmental solutions to hospitals and health systems across the United States. By shifting our dietary patterns toward delicious foods produced in just and sustainable ways, we can improve individual, community, and environmental health while sharply reducing food-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Additional links at Heath Care Without Harm • Healthy Food in Health Care | Health Care Without Harm (noharm-uscanada.org) • People and planet-friendly food | Health Care Without Harm (noharm-uscanada.org) Healthcare Without Harm is an international collaborative organization that “works to transform health care worldwide so that it reduces its environmental footprint, becomes a community anchor for sustainability and a leader in the global movement for environmental health and justice. Programs include Medical Waste, Toxic Materials, Safer Chemicals, Green Building and Energy, Healthy Food, Pharmaceuticals, Sustainable Procurement, Climate and Health, Transportation, Water.