
The Biden-Harris Administration recently hosted the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on September 28th. This is the first conference to be held since the initial White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health in 1969. The 1969 conference initiated the process of creating many of the successful nutrition assistance programs we have today such as SNAP, WIC, and the School Meals Program. The conference held last month brought together policymakers, advocates, researchers, practitioners, school officials, and food industry representatives to analyze current programs and how they address hunger, nutrition, and health. Additionally, a National Strategy was released outlining the steps the government will take to address the intersections between hunger, nutrition, and health.
The Conference began with an overview of the National Strategy including a discussion of the five pillars that are currently guiding the White House’s actions. These pillars include improving food access and affordability, integrating nutrition and health, empowering all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices, supporting physical activity for all, and enhancing nutrition and food security research. In comparison, the five pillars of the 1969 conference were ensuring affordable food for all children and families, bringing nutrition out of the health care shadows, growing partnerships to expand local food options, creating communities designed for activity, and using research to guide policy and scale pilots. The comparison of the pillars outlined at each conference highlights the changes to the status of health, hunger, and nutrition in the United States and how they intend to expand upon the ideas posed at the initial conference.
Many ideas and recommendations were offered by those who attended the conference. Among them was a recommendation to increase funding for existing programs like SNAP. It was suggested that in addition to food assistance programs, steps need to be taken to treat the causes of food insecurity and poverty. It was also noted that there needs to be more collaboration to expand participation in federal nutrition programs. These are just a few of the many recommendations proposed throughout the conference.
The specific commitments of several major organizations were also announced, totaling eight billion dollars in expenditures to improve food security. DoorDash made a commitment to provide community credits for community-based programs to help address transportation barriers to accessing healthy food in 18 major cities across the country. Boston Medical Center committed to building farms at two of their new facilities in order to supply fresh local produce to hospitalized patients. MyFitnessPal committed to making the premium version of their app free to at least one million Americans at risk for diet-related disease. These are just a few of the many commitments made with the goal of addressing the five pillars outlined in the National Strategy. The complete list can be found here.
This conference expands upon the original 1969 conference and further highlights the intersectionality of health, hunger, food, and nutrition. Current federal programs were evaluated and possible improvements were addressed. Additionally, many commitments were made by various organizations targeting different barriers to food, nutrition, and health, such as low wages and lack of transportation to acquire food. The resulting changes from this conference will likely have a great and lasting impact for many Americans.
Dr. Beth Olson participated in a radio interview with Dr. Andrew Ruis on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Central Time. You can listen to that interview here.