Aspen Ideas Health 2025 Food is Medicine

The cost of the health care required to treat diet-related diseases in the United States is a staggering $1.1 trillion—about the same as what we spend on food itself. Getting Americans to eat differently is difficult when many fruits and vegetables cost more than high-fat, high-salt foods. In under-resourced communities, they can also be harder to find. To improve access to nutritious foods and ultimately reduce health care costs, new approaches may be needed, such as integrating nutrition into medical education, developing food-based interventions to prevent or manage disease, and perhaps offering incentives for purchasing fresh produce.

Speakers

Corby Kummer
Executive Director, Food and Society Program, Aspen Institute

Hilary Seligman
Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco

John Lumpkin
President, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation

Wendy Slusser
Associate Vice Provost, Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center, University of California at Los Angeles