Podcast Covers the Effect Food Insecurity Has on Health
Food insecurity is one of the least addressed factors contributing to poor health outcomes. The latest episode of Powering Human Care, the Sodexo Healthcare podcast, delves into how healthcare organizations are working to address this issue to improve patient outcomes.
In this second installment of the podcast, David Gillan, Sodexo’s chief of client retention and strategy, navigates a revelatory discussion with Afaf Qasem, director of health promotion at Tallahasee Memorial Healthcare, and Anne Leach, director of clinical and community nutrition at University Hospitals, on the link between food insecurity and chronic health problems. The dialogue yielded some poignant insights: Individuals who are food insecure often don’t have access to nutritious foods because they live in neighborhoods where there are few or no full-service grocery stores and poor access to public transportation. Often, these individuals must choose between paying rent, utilities, medical expenses, and other bills or buying food. To make matters worse, inflation, which is causing record food prices, and food-production and supply-chain challenges are making it even harder for marginalized populations to purchase enough food.
All of this leads to stress, which some food insecure individuals might assuage by consuming calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods that are highly processed and engaging in other less-than-ideal dietary or lifestyle behaviors (i.e., smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, drug use, etc.). Because of these and other factors, an inordinate amount of Americans who experience food insecurity suffer from obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes or other chronic conditions.
Qasem and Leach also discuss how hospitals, other health care providers and Sodexo Healthcare are working to solve or address the problems. Some of the intervention strategies underway include:
- Screening patients for food insecurity
- Partnering with local grocery stores, food banks, and other community services
- Creating onsite food pharmacies
- Building grocery stores in communities
Tune in to hear all of the insightful conversation and learn more about factors causing food insecurity and the strategies that health care organizations, alongside Sodexo, are using to address the issue.
