Diet Reform: How Government Can Help Health Care with Better Diets

by Susan Levin, MS, RD photo: Nathalie Maynor cc

There’s an elephant in the waiting room. In the national debate about much-needed health care reform, nobody is talking about prevention—or rather most cost effective method of prevention—diet.

Why is our government so hesitant to talk about diet's role in health? There is more than enough scientific evidence to show that plant-based diets are healthier and help prevent our deadliest—and most costly—chronic diseases. This research has been available for decades and continues to grow.

This is not the first time the government has lagged behind conclusive scientific research. Take tobacco for example. The science was years ahead of the government's advice. And while tobacco use is still the single leading cause of preventable death in the United States, deaths linked to diet-related diseases—obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease—far outnumber deaths from any other modifiable lifestyle choice. And as with tobacco, we need the federal government to acknowledge this serious problem in order to reverse it.

Unfortunately, low-income families suffer disproportionally from chronic diseases caused (or affected) by diet? That's why the recent changes in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), a federally administered program, is a significant milestone.

This program distributes food to low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women, non-breastfeeding postpartum women, infants, and children up to 5 years old. Forty-five percent of all infants born in the U.S. receive WIC food packages. This high percentage reflects not only the magnitude of the program but also its potential impact on our nation’s health.

You might think the government would have long ago taken advantage of this opportunity to influence so many mothers and distributed more healthful fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. However, the government did not concede to the outcry for healthier WIC options until just recently.

Like school cafeterias and prisons, WIC often receives surplus foods that the U.S. Department of Agriculture buys up and gets rid of through various programs. This often means cheap—if not free—high-fat foods such as milk, cheese, and meat. While this takes into account the USDA's priority of supporting agriculture, it in no way considers the health of children and families.

But here’s the good news: WIC participants can now get more fruits and vegetables, a soy-based beverage instead of cow's milk, tofu, and whole grains. The packages even reduce the allowable amount of milk and eggs. These changes are nothing short of a dietitian's dream.

This giant federal leap into today’s nutrition science represents the government’s emerging willingness to admit that dietary changes are essential to veer off this path of sickness we have been blazing for decades. If nothing else, it should inspire those of us who work in health care, or who have children, or who care about the nation’s health and well-being, to continue the fight.

I hope the committees that update the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act will be as current with their thinking—advocating for more fruits and vegetables and less animal-based products. Guidelines that focus on the latest science and encourage plant-based diets may not please industry, but they will benefit the health of Americans immediately and in the long run.

For real health care reform, we need diet reform.