An Environmental Health Perspective on Food Systems Kathryn Savoie, Ph.D. Detroit Community Health Director March 20, 2020
Learning Objectives • List 2 examples of how an industrialized food system results in adverse health outcomes in the US • Identify 2 actions that health professionals can engage in to create a healthy food system at an institutional/ organizational level
Scope of Presentation Part I: • What is a Food System? • Health Care Advocacy • Health Concerns of an Industrialized Food System o Climate Change o Pesticides Part II: Making Change
An Ecological Health Framework
What is Healthy Food?
A Food Systems Approach Healthy food has high nutritional value and comes from a food system that is ecologically sound economically viable , and socially responsible .
What is a Food System? ✔ Growing ✔ Harvesting ✔ Processing ✔ Packaging ✔ Transportation ✔ Marketing ✔ Consumption ✔ Waste Disposal (food and packaging)
What is a Food System? ✔ All inputs used ✔ All outputs generated ✔ Operates within and is influenced by social, political, economic and environmental context ✔ human resources that provide labor, research and education
What is a Food System?
Conventional (Industrial) Food Systems
Conventional (Industrial) Food Systems
Conventional/Industrial Food Systems Large scale, monoculture o Industrial machinery, fossil fuels o Separates animal and plant production o Favors distant distribution/processed foods o Favors the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers o Produces large quantities of highly processed calorie- o rich, nutrient-poor food Major driver of obesity, some kinds of cancer, o malnutrition, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic diseases.
Alternative Food Systems
Healthcare Advocacy • Health care sector bears the burden of treating illness associated with our broken food system. • Health care providers interact daily with people who experience food-related disease, and may be receptive to a food systems approach • Healthcare professionals have credibility, influence, and expertise.
Healthcare Advocacy Anti-smoking campaigns is an excellent model. Multiple interventions at many levels: • Regulation • changing health care environments • addressing advertising
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS IN OUR FOOD SYSTEM
THE FOOD SYSTEM: MICHIGAN APPLES
THE FOOD SYSTEM: MICHIGAN APPLES WASHING, GROWING HARVESTING GRADING, PACKING WAXING RETAILING PACKAGING DISTRIBUTING PROCESSING PREPARING CONSUMING DISPOSING COMPOSTING
Key health concerns with our industrialized food system ◻ Exposure to toxic chemicals ◻ Antibiotic resistance ◻ Food-borne illness ◻ Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) ◻ Environmental degradation ◻ Consumption patterns
Where in the food system do these concerns exist?
Food Systems Approach : Climate Change
Agriculture and Climate Change ◻ Deforestation ◻ Livestock ◻ Animal manure and rice paddies ◻ Water use ◻ Fossil fuel use
How our Food System Impacts the Climate • Contributes up to 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions – clearing forests for new agricultural land – methane emissions from livestock and rice production • Accounts for 80% of global deforestation • Uses 70% of the world’s available fresh water
How Climate Impacts our Food Systems
Climate Change Impacts Changing Weather Patterns: ◻ Extreme heat > Poor air quality ◻ Increased precipitation > flooding ◻ Drought > desertification ◻ Superstorms Insect borne diseases Psychological damage
Climate Change Impacts in Michigan
PESTICIDES IN FOOD PRODUCTION
What is a pesticide? ◻ A pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances used to prevent, destroy, repel or reduce pests and the damage caused by pests. ◻ Pests are living organisms that occur where they are not wanted or that cause damage to crops , humans, or other animals. ◻ Pests can include insects, weeds, fungi, and rodents .
Pesticide Use ◻ Over 16,000 pesticide products in use in the United States (agricultural and non-agricultural). ◻ Major categories: Organophosphates Carbamates Pyrethrins Pyrethroids Biologicals Organochlorines
Health Concerns of Pesticide Use Nervous System ◻ Health effects Skin or eye irritants depend on the type of pesticide Hormone or endocrine system Carcinogens ◻ Acute and chronic effects Obesogens – linked to increase BMI, insulin resistance
Farm Workers and Pesticides
Pesticides and Bees
Food Matters: to Pregnant Women, Children, and Future Generations Vulnerability Nutrition Matters Matters Good nutrition is an Developing fetus and essential young human are requirement of uniquely vulnerable healthy human to environmental development exposures Timing Matters Health consequences of in-utero and early life exposures
A Food System Approach: Public Policy
A Food System Approach: Economic Drivers of Food Choice
A Food System Approach: Access & Availability Food deserts ▪ Urban and rural communities with economic and transportation barriers to accessing healthy food Hunger in America ▪ Over 49 million Americans live in households that are “food insecure” ▪ US minimum wage = $7.25/hour
Factors that affect health Examples Eat healthy, Smallest be physically active Counseling Impact & Education Rx for high cholesterol, Clinical diabetes. Vitamin/Mineral supplements Interventions Immunizations, exercise, Long-lasting colonoscopy Protective Interventions Strategic Food/Bev Changing the Context Pricing, HFHC Pledge, to make individuals’ default Farmers Markets, CSA decisions healthy Largest Largest Poverty, education Impact Impact Socioeconomic Factors level, inequality www.cdc.gov/about/grand-rounds/archives/2010/download/GR-021810.pdf
A Food System Approach: Externalities Health and environmental costs are not reflected in the price of food or accounted for in the food system
Changing your thinking: A systems perspective Farm & Food Policy Healthier Eating Environments Behavior Change Story M, Hamm MW, Wallinga D, eds. Food Systems and Public Health: Linkages to Achieve Healthier Diets and Healthier Communities (suppl) Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, Volume 4, Issues 3 & 4. December 2009 (in press)
“Our national obesity epidemic is but a single symptom of a more serious illness: our unhealthy food system. In order to prescribe healthier food, we must rethink the entire system, from the farm to our children’s mouths.” David Wallinga, MD – Healthy Food Action, 2010
Healthy Food in Health Care: A Menu of Change
Making Change ✔ In Your Practice ✔ In Your Institution ✔ In Your Professional Affiliations ✔ In Communities ✔ Regionally ✔ Nationally ✔ Globally
In Your Practice Be aware of and help educate patients about how to reduce pesticide exposure
In Your Practice
Procuring, Serving Healthier Food 20% by 2020
Educating Peers
Health care farming… Henry Ford West Bloomfield Greenhouse Organic Hydroponic
. . . and farmers markets/farm stands Eastern Market Farm Stand at DMC
Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Programs ❖ Link health care and food systems ❖ Support a healthier local food system
Making Change In Communities • Local Food Policy Councils • Farm to School efforts • Corner Store Conversions • Community Gardens • Educating community leaders and elected officials
Making Change Nationally Ecology Center Health professional engagement in healthy food advocacy www.ecocenter.org Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Reform Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to keep toxins out of food www.saferchemicals.org Health Care Without Harm Health professional engagement https://noharm-uscanada.org/content/us-canada/health-professional- engagement Food Research Action Council National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
Thank you! kathryn@ecocenter.org
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