Advancing Federal Nutrition Research to Improve America's Health
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Video Transcript
00;00;06;42 [Anand Parekh]: And the chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center. And I want to welcome all of you to today's event entitled Advancing Federal Nutrition Research to Improve America's Health. As most of you know, the Bipartisan Policy Center is a nonprofit organization that strives to take the best ideas from all sides to promote health, security and opportunity. The BPC has a robust health program which includes a focus on nutrition and
00;00;34;04 reducing diet related death and illness. Recent efforts have included recommendations from BPC SNAP Task Force released in a report last year entitled Meeting with Nutrition Leveraging Federal Programs for Better Health over the Years. BPC has also focused on enhancing health, professional education, on nutrition and diet, as well as on increasing insurance coverage of clinical and community preventive and management services to address obesity. Today, we're very, very pleased to partner with the Tuft's Friedman School
00;01;07;46 of Nutrition Science and Policy to host an event on the importance of strengthening federal nutrition research and coordination to improve public health, the economy and our nation's overall resiliency. This topic is even more timely given the Covid 19 pandemic, which is further challenged the food system and exacerbated food insecurity for millions of Americans. And it's even more timely. As about an hour ago, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee released
00;01;37;37 its report. As you all know, this is the report that forms the foundation and the basis for USDA and Health and Human Services to publish dietary guidelines for Americans every five years.
00;01;49;40 [Anand Parekh]: During today's program, we're honored to be joined and we will hear from members of Congress, experts from the executive branch, as well as leaders. We'll have a question and answer period after our panel discussion. And so please prepare your questions in advance. We have over 500 people registered for this event, and so we'll try to get to as many questions as possible. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our first participant who has
00;02;19;10 provided prerecorded remarks today, Congressman Tom Cole. Congressman Cole is currently serving his ninth term from Oklahoma. Since 2009, he has served on the House Appropriations Committee, where he is currently vice ranking Republican of the full committee and ranking Republican of the Subcommittee on Labor HHS. He was also appointed to the House Rules Committee in 2013 and has remained on the panel since then. As the ranking Republican, as a member of Congress, he has been a true
00;02;49;42 champion of the NIH and advancing medical research. Please join me in welcoming Congressman Cole, who has joined with prerecorded remarks.
00;03;04;20 [Congressman Tom Cole]: Hi, this congressman, Tom Cole from the fourth district of Oklahoma. And I regret very much I'm not able to join you in your important conference on nutrition and the future of nutrition research at the National Institutes of Health. But I'm actually where you want me to be. We're in the appropriations season and Washington will actually bring up the Labor, Health and Education bill on Monday of next week and begin the process of moving forward on trying to provide additional resources for the
00;03;33;41 important work that goes on at the National Institute of Health.
00;03;37;58 [Congressman Tom Cole]: In that work, there's not much more important than nutrition. The basic facts are pretty disturbing. One in every eight Americans is food deprived. Two in every five Americans are obese. And we know we have a real challenge in making sure that not only does no American go hungry, but that they eat the right things in the right ways that will reinforce their health and make them have longer and better, more productive lives.
00;04;05;18 It's exciting to see what's happened in recent years. We've put additional resources in the NIH. Indeed, we've increased funding by 39 percent in the last five years. As a result, the NIH has been able to move into some new and exciting areas. And the fact that they've had the study of nutrition is one of their top goals spread across now. Multiple institutes important, as you well know better than most. In May of 2020, the NIH introduced its first ever overall strategy plan for
00;04;39;52 nutrition research going forward as an important milestone for our country. So I wish you well as you continue to contribute to the national dialogue on nutrition. And we work hard in Washington, D.C. to provide the resources necessary for first class scientific research to help improve the lives of each and every American.
00;05;15;01 [Anand Parekh]: Great. Well, thank you so much. I didn't hear the audio, but hopefully or see the video, but hopefully everyone I did have an opportunity to do so at this time.
00;05;30;38 [Anand Parekh]: I'd like to now introduce with pre-recorded remarks. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. She is congresswoman from Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District. Congresswoman DeLauro serves in the Democratic leadership as co-chair of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and she is the chair of the Labor HHS Appropriations Subcommittee. She also serves on the subcommittee responsible for the U.S. Department of
00;05;58;03 Agriculture and the U.S. FDA, where she oversees food and drug safety. She is a leader in fighting to improve and expand federal support for child nutrition, modernizing our food safety system and increasing biomedical research funding to make life saving use in science and medicine. We'll now hear from Congresswoman DeLauro with pre-recorded remarks.
00;06;26;04 [Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro]: For that kind introduction, let me thank Dr. Parekh, the chief medical adviser of the Bipartisan Policy Center. We are currently facing a health crisis and an economic crisis that have exposed serious disparities in our systems. This pandemic has further demonstrated how many were living on a knife's edge. And I strongly believe we must be doing more, not less, for hosting this discussion and for welcoming me today. Let me thank the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Tufts Friedman School of
00;06;59;00 Nutrition Science and Policy and the Rockefeller Foundation. I want to recognize my longtime friend and trusted adviser, Secretary Dan Glickman, co-chair of BPC's SNAP Task Force, as well as Professor Darry Mozaffarian dean of the Friedman School for the leadership and passion he brings to this issue. Let me also acknowledge my friend and partner on the Appropriations
00;07;26;46 Committee and ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services Education Subcommittee, Congressman Tom Cole.
00;07;35;31 [Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro]: We have collaborated the last six years and have produced bills and have allowed the Congress to advance America's needs. Today's event will discuss strengthening federal nutrition, research and coordination that is so important, especially given the current state of our country. This pandemic has pointed to us where our social safety net and our
00;08;02;15 nation's food system are not as strong as we believe them to be. Cases of the coronavirus are rising exponentially. Need continues to grow. The Census Bureau conducted a recent household pulse survey to measure social and economic impacts of Covid 19. They found, and I quote, Households with children were more likely to report permanent loss of employment and food shortages since the start of
00;08;36;07 the pandemic. Just as concerning. We know that when a family's economic security is threatened, so is the quality of their diet. Loss of income can shift people toward cheaper nutrient poor foods. Additionally, because most nutritious foods tend to be highly perishable, future disruptions in any part of the food supply chain could impact the
00;09;02;37 availability of fresh fruits and vegetables, for example. In March, America's largest fast food chain, McDonald's, eliminated several parts of its menu, including salads. The company has recently signaled that the return of salad to the menu could be months away. That is why I've been pushing for the Congress to take bold steps to safeguard the nation's food supply and to increase people's ability to afford adequate nutrition. This crisis has been exacerbated by a lack of leadership, which is why I
00;09;39;08 have called for a coordinated food systems-based response from the highest levels of our federal government.
00;09;47;49 [Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro]: I also fought to secure the inclusion of a 50 percent boost in the monthly food stamp benefit in the House passed Heroes. I'm proud to fight for federal leadership on nutrition in the U.S. House of Representatives. Poor nutrition plagued the country before this crisis, and I fear it will worsen afterwards. We know why nutrition research is so vital. Diet related chronic diseases have increased in the United States and that
00;10;20;05 has pushed down the nation's quality of life and pushed up their health care costs. Decades ago, I was inspired by Senator George McGovern and Senator Robert Dole, who made combating hunger a shared bipartisan priority to travel the United States. Witnessing American hunger and pushing for bold federal action to provide nutrition assistance. But today, the issue has become more complex, along with looking at the
00;10;52;54 quantity of food. We must also direct our attention to the quality of food. We must find new ways to incentivize the production, availability, and consumption of fresh and nutritious foods, especially in low income and vulnerable communities and in communities of color. A racial disparity that we must correct if we are to make clear that Black
00;11;18;14 Lives Matter is an issue that demands better federal coordination. According to the Government Accountability Office, and I quote, the U.S. food supply is governed by a complex system stemming from at least 30 laws administered by 15 federal agencies. At this moment, it is clear we must be bringing the full weight of the federal government to bear to enhance coordination and drive meaningful
00;11;49;23 outcomes.
00;11;50;42 [Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro]: This is what I have fought to do. In June 1918, I was proud to join Representative Tim Ryan requesting the Government Accountability Office to report on federal food policy and how it relates to public health. It is our understanding that GAO was working on this request, reviewing actions throughout the federal government and will provide Congress with a
00;12;17;48 set of meaningful actions and insights to improve our nation's food system. Additionally, I have worked to advance these goals through the annual appropriations process, where I serve as a senior member of the subcommittee that funds the USDA, as well as chair of the subcommittee that funds the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC and the NIH. And recently the Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year 2021 Labor HHS spending bill, which included more than two point two billion
00;12;55;50 dollars for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is where the bulk of nutrition research occurs at the National Institutes of Health. We are doing much, but in a moment where this crisis has exposed so many disparities. It is clear we must be doing so much more. I join many of you in this belief that we need a more coordinated and
00;13;21;37 centralized authority on nutrition research. And so I look forward to working with all of you to make that a reality. There is hope in 2010, having realized good nutrition is one of the foundations of learning. The Congress passed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, which improves the nutritional quality of school meals markedly.
00;13;44;36 [Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro]: So now, nearly a decade later, USDA is own analysis has found that between the 2009 and 2010 school year and the 2014 2015 school year, the nutritional quality of school lunches has increased by 41 percent. That is the kind of impact our efforts can have. Let us make sure that this generation of American children has access to
00;14;12;29 the affordable, healthy, and nutritious foods they need to thrive. I will be working hard for the remainder of this year and beyond to see that we continue our investments in better nutrition and fighting hunger. I look forward to seeing the white paper being released today and I look forward to engaging with it. Thank you. All the authors and those who contributed to the paper. You are working to make a difference. And thank you for allowing me to speak to you today.
00;14;43;50 It is an honor.
00;14;47;48 [Anand Parekh]: Thank you, Congresswoman DeLauro, for your leadership as well as Congressman Cole. And now we'll turn to the executive branch. We're very pleased to have with us today Dr. James Anderson. Dr. Anderson is the deputy director for Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives and director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives at the NIH. With experience in clinical medicine and academic research, he's been a principal investigator on NIH grants for over 20 years. And in an administration, Dr. Anderson has a broad understanding of the
00;15;20;43 biomedical research spectrum that informs his work with the NIH community in evaluating, prioritizing and coordinating a wide range of trans NIH research opportunities.
00;15;32;08 [Anand Parekh]: We're thrilled to have Dr. Anderson with us. Dr. Anderson. Please go ahead.
00;15;39;37 [Jim Anderson]: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to represent the NIH here today. And Dr. Francis Collins, the NIH director, and to reaffirm the critical role of nutrition research in maintaining health and medicating diet related diseases. And this is especially important now in light of the current covered 19 pandemic. Given the increased risks faced by people with underlying diseases, the consequences of Covid 19 infection are even greater for vulnerable
00;16;10;25 populations or diet related diseases are more prevalent due to health and social disparities. So the guide the next decade of nutrition research supported by an edge. We released on May 27 of this year that 2020 to 30 strategic plan for NIH nutrition research. So, to put this in perspective, we all want to know what should I eat? Currently, dietary recommendations are largely population based.
00;16;39;09 What should we eat? Taking advantage of emerging technologies all makes microbiome, big data, machine learning and other tools and insights. A dominant theme of the new plan is precision nutrition. The intent is to expand opportunities to uncover into individual variability and answer that question. What should I eat? So simply stated, the goals driving the research plan are to study and
00;17;08;05 answer what we eat. And how does it affect us? What? And when should we eat? How does what we eat promote health across our lifespan? And how can we improve the use of food as medicines?
00;17;24;26 [Jim Anderson]: The plan also has five crosscutting areas relevant to all these strategic goals, and they include a real emphasis on minority health and health disparities, which, again, we're seeing to be a very important goal today. The health of women, rigor and reproducibility. And then again, informing the precision nutrition theme is science, systems, science and artificial intelligence. And of course, not last very important training, the nutrition scientific
00;17;55;22 workforce. So, NIH looks forward to working with nutrition researchers, the public and all stakeholders over the next decade to advance our understanding of nutrition and to use that knowledge to maintain and improve human health. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here.
00;18;17;15 [Anand Parekh]: Thank you, Dr. Anderson, and thank you to the NIH for their leadership in releasing its strategic plan for nutrition research. This time we'll move over to the USDA and I'm very happy to introduce Dr. Scott Hutchins through pre-recorded remarks. Dr. Hutchins is the deputy undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research, Education and Economics Mission area, which is comprised of the Agricultural Research Service, the Economic Research Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service and the National
00;18;49;12 Institute of Food and Agriculture. Together, these four agencies cut across every USDA program and provide unique federal leadership responsibility to advance agricultural research, extension, and education. Please welcome Dr. Scott Hutchins.
00;19;12;00 [Scott Hutchins]: Hi, I'm Scott Hutchins, deputy undersecretary for research education economics at USDA. I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of USDA about our strong legacy and bold vision for human nutrition research.
00;19;25;02 [Scott Hutchins]: And thank you also for the opportunity previously provided to preview the Nutrition White Paper. USDA history in nutrition dates back over 100 years, starting with Wilbur O. Atwater, an administrator of the very first agricultural experiment station who many regard as the father of modern nutrition. Dr. Atwater was a pioneer, initiating USDA nutrition research programs and food intake, food composition, metabolism, and nutrition education. Later, he created the first catalog of nutrient compositions of food, which
00;19;55;19 still exist today as a digital database with over 300000 entries. The database is widely used by consumers, nutritionists, industry, medical professionals, federal agencies and policymakers as the scientific basis for dietary guidance, nutritional labeling, labeling and scientific policymaking. And it is still used here at USDA. Dr. Atwater's vision and priority for nutrition research have carried on at USDA and serve as a foundation for how we produce food and deliver it to
00;20;25;31 customers and consumers each day. USDA is the only federal department that implements nutrition to various segments of the public, relies heavily on an integrated nutrition research focus to inform and guide policy development in this mission. Deputy Undersecretary Lipps and myself, along with our teams, are full partners as part of one USDA to achieve our mantra of do, right and feed everyone. We provide science base information for everyone to obtain nutritious,
00;20;54;59 safe, affordable, appealing and personalized choices while also driving economic sustainability and agricultural food production in the Research, Economics and Education Mission area. I have the honor to lead our science agencies as they conduct human nutrition research with an emphasis on food based approaches to better health.
00;21;15;22 [Scott Hutchins]: Our in-house scientists at the Agricultural Research Service, for example, conduct long term multidisciplinary research as six internationally recognized human nutrition research centers. On the extramural side, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture supports programs through our Land Grant University system in teaching research and extension services and improve the nutrition and well-being of Americans while creating the next generation of scientists and nutrition experts at these universities. Additionally, our economists at the Economic Research Service provide
00;21;46;44 invaluable data on demographics, social and economic determinants of food and nutrient consumption, how food choices are made and associated health outcomes. USDA Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services administers fifteen federal nutrition assistance programs, including WIC, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and, of course, school meals in partnership with state and tribal governments.
00;22;12;36 Our programs serve one in four Americans during a year. We not only study nutrition, we do nutrition at USDA, USDA colleagues with the Health and Human Services Organizations on the Interagency Committee on Human Nutrition Research. This is a trans federal government committee that participate with participating membership of 12 federal departments. And I'm personally pleased to co-chair this committee with Admiral Giroir at HHS. This committee coordinates to improve quality of life, to increase competitiveness of American agriculture, to bolster the U.S. economy and to
00;22;46;51 enhance safety of our food supply and to help, of course, sustain natural resources through robust food systems. We promote responsive agriculture, which refers to better connecting production, agriculture with human and environmental health and with economic sustainability.
00;23;03;14 [Scott Hutchins]: USDA research integrates agriculture production with value added processing of agricultural products, environmental impact and consumer choice seeking evidence-based outcomes at every opportunity. As demonstration of our commitment and priority, earlier this year we released the USDA Science Blueprint, which serves as a roadmap for USDA science for the next five years and beyond. One of the five core themes of this science blueprint is food and nutrition translation, and it's truly a key theme. And within that framework, we hope to provide guidance and incentives to
00;23;36;28 promote healthier diets for Americans to reduce the incidence of diet related chronic diseases. This will require a paradigm shift toward the concept of precision nutrition, as outlined in the blueprint and with the exciting convergence of sciences. Our focus and vigorous commitment will relate to this focus and paradigm on precision nutrition, a personalized approach to food and dietary guidance rooted in science and based on individual's unique dietary and health
00;24;04;39 needs. From a personal and not solely population genetics perspective. We know that agriculture in all its facets will contribute significantly to improved nutrition outcomes in the United States. And the USDA accepts that challenge on behalf of producers and consumers. We are indeed eager, therefore, to partner with all organizations that share this vision of improving the nutritional health of all Americans. And we do this in the tradition of the great Dr. Atwater.
00;24;32;46 Thank you again for the opportunity to present to you today. And I wish you all the very best.
00;24;37;50 [Scott Hutchins]: Thank you.
00;24;48;05 [Anand Parekh]: Thank you to Dr. Hutchins and to USDA for their leadership at this time. We will move to the next segment of the program and to provide some context for today's discussion. I'm very honored to introduce a national leader in nutrition research and really the catalyst for many of the activities that will be discussed today. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian. Dr. Mozaffarian is a cardiologist and epidemiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts, the only graduate school of nutrition in the United
00;25;21;15 States. Doctor Mozaffarian has authored, more than 400 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches to reduce these burdens in the US and globally. He served in numerous advisory roles, including for the U.S. and Canadian governments. American Heart Association, World Health Organization, and the United Nations. He's a leader of the white paper, soon to be released, looking at options
00;25;50;08 for a new coordinated federal research effort centered around nutrition. Welcome, Dr Mozaffarian in prerecorded remarks.
00;26;03;04 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: I'm so pleased to be able to join this remarkable event on strengthening federal nutrition research. I'm going to be talking about a white paper that we have developed with support of the Rockefeller Foundation over the last six months and presenting those findings. Let me share my screen. And as I do so, I really want to give my thanks to the Bipartisan Policy Center for hosting this event and again to the Rockefeller Foundation, who
00;26;30;53 supported the development of this white paper.
00;26;33;26 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: And also this event. And I'm going to be talking about strengthening national nutrition research, the rationale and the best potential options. So first, my thanks to my coauthors who are listed here, this paper is coming out in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and we really have a wonderful group of experts from a diversity of backgrounds. And also thank you to the leaders from government and the panelists and all
00;27;04;12 those who are participating in today's session. So these are the four topics that we really wanted to address in in thinking about how and why we might wish to strengthen federal nutrition research first, the mounting diet related health burdens and all of the downstream consequences. What is the current diverse federal nutrition research landscape and how is it coordinated? What are opportunities for advancing nutrition related discoveries, whether it's basic science, clinical science policy, agricultural, public health or
00;27;34;37 translational work? And then based on that, what are the best options based on other precedents and historical successes to strengthen and coordinate federal nutrition research, including pros, cons and path forward? Well, as we reviewed, you know, the incredible diet related burdens in our country, it's really incredible. Over the last 30 or 40 years how sick we have become. More Americans are sick today than are healthy. Half of adults have diabetes or prediabetes. More than half of cardiovascular disease and three in four adults are
00;28;06;08 overweight or obese. So being healthy is actually the exception now in our country.
00;28;11;57 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: And the economic costs of this are incredible. Health care costs over fifty years have skyrocketed from about five percent to 28 percent of the total federal budget and twenty nine percent of total state budgets and even adjusting for inflation, adjusting for inflation over 50 years. U.S. businesses have gone from spending about 80 billion a year on health care to one point two trillion dollars on health care. And the annual costs of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity are in the hundreds of billions of dollars. So when we looked at these national attrition challenges, what it is
00;28;46;23 we're really facing, they can be grouped into sort of nine major categories chronic diseases, incredible burdens of chronic diseases, food insecurity even before Covid. Almost 40 million Americans are food insecure, incredible health disparities for minority, rural, low income and other underserved populations, tremendous public confusion about what is a healthy diet and all kinds of competing and conflicting messages? Spiraling health care costs out of control, which are challenging
00;29;15;08 government budgets and challenging competitiveness of American business. Major challenges to military readiness. Seventy one percent of young Americans can't qualify for military service. And the leading medical disqualifier is obesity. And then links to resources and how we use our natural resources and sustainability. And Covid has really laid bare and made very stark these challenges, whether it's nutrition and immunity, the incredible rise in food insecurity
00;29;44;59 and disrupted supply chains, the incredible evidence from around the world, including the United States, that diabetes, obesity, hypertension, other diet related metabolic risk dramatically worsen Covid outcomes and also contribute to disparities.
00;30;01;41 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: And this has issues for public outreach, jobs and, of course, science, trying to understand and address all of these things. When we address the current federal nutrition research landscape, one of the most striking things is how diverse the agencies and departments conducting nutrition research are across the federal government? Of course, the National Institutes of Health is the largest funder of research, followed by USDA. But many, many other agencies are very interested in nutrition research,
00;30;32;04 including the Department of Defense, for readiness and performance of the troops. USAID, with its global food aid programs, Medicare and Medicaid, and thinking about food as medicine, the V.A. is trying to help our veterans. NASA for going to space and many others. And so this striking landscape that the breadth of a striking landscape was also complemented by how relatively uncoordinated these efforts are and how
00;31;02;19 they're mostly siloed across these different departments and agencies. When we look at investments, these are two of the biggest funders, NIH and USDA? These are grants over time. Light blue is the total funding and billions of dollars over the years. And dark blue is funding for nutrition research. And you can see that while over this time period, diet related diseases and all of the consequences we outline, all of the burdens have skyrocketed.
00;31;28;54 There's been pretty much flat funding for nutrition research. And if you look at human nutrition research for prevention and treatment of disease, the NIH estimates that about 1.3 percent of its whole budget is spent on human nutrition research.
00;31;43;51 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: So, a very small proportion of its budget and also flat USDA. And so the investment has not kept up with the pace of the of the disease burden as we've seen. And then the other striking finding beyond investment was poor coordination. We found that over 50 years there have been multiple call. And this is just a graph not going to walk you through it to highlight all of the different ways that the federal government has recognized through congressional reports, Interagency Committee, Institute of Medicine
00;32;14;13 reports, Government Accountability Office reports that federal nutrition research is critical to our country, critical for national security, critical for our economy, health disparities. And yet it's uncoordinated. And what's striking across all of these recommendations is that none of them met their goals of increasing coordination, largely because there was no structure with appropriations and authority that was created. And so all of these groups came out with guidelines, recommendations, how
00;32;41;26 we can make federal nutrition research stronger and more coordinated. And yet without appropriations authority and structure, none of these efforts really achieve their goals. And so when we looked at the opportunities, what could we discover with greater investment and coordination of nutrition research? These were the major areas we identified and cover in detail in our white paper. Public guidance, really crucial for people to be able to understand what to eat. Fundamental discovery, things like the microbiome, epigenetics, the first thousand days of life, healthy aging and more precision nutrition,
00;33;15;37 monitoring and surveillance, trying to understand real time what's going on, including with shocks like Covid 19, health equity implementation, science around the built environment and policy and other ways to improve behavior.
00;33;28;42 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: Food is medicine. How do we integrate nutrition into health care, partnerships and innovation with businesses and entrepreneurs? How do we leverage the federal investments in nutrition? How do we reduce health care spending? All of the regulatory issues, particularly at FDA, around food safety, health plans, food additives, dietary supplements, but also at FTC and other places, and then agriculture and sustainability, how we shepherd and preserve our resources as we create healthier and more equitable foods. So the major options when we looked at all of these challenges and
00;34;02;02 burdens of opportunities are outlined here. We found three major categories of options cross governmental coordination options to strengthen federal nutrition research within NIH and options to strengthen federal nutrition research within USDA. Now, crucially, we found that all of these are complementary. So this is not either or these are an that that we both need across governmental approach for better coordination. We need strengthening and better investments within NIH and we need
00;34;30;11 strengthening and better investment within USDA. The details of all of these are outlined in our white paper. We are not saying that any one of these specifically should or should not be done. But we outline the pros, the cons and the path forward and something needs to be done to really take advantage of these opportunities. Two of the examples of the top recommendations for coordination were to create an office of a national director of food nutrition. This is built on the model of the very successful office of the Director of
00;35;00;42 National Intelligence, which was created after September 11th when the government and the country realized that we had fragmented federal national intelligence efforts and the.
00;35;09;46 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: ODNI was created to coordinate those efforts. Similarly, Covid 19, has showed us how fragmented our food system is and office of a national director pediatrician because could help coordinate that. And then one of the examples of the potential options within NIH would be to create a 28 center and institute, the National Institute of Nutrition, which would require congressional authorization and importantly, new appropriations. Because this a new NIN should not take away from siloed nutrition research. We would want all of the incredible nutrition research going on
00;35;43;12 across NIH to continue and be strengthened with the addition of an NIN The return on investment is also covered in detail in our white paper. There's enormous potential, as I as I shared earlier, and the opportunities to get direct economic return from the science to better leverage. The one hundred and fifty billion dollars of federal investments in attrition to reduce side related diseases and health disparities, reduce
00;36;08;05 the incredible rise in health care costs. Unlock economic growth with new new jobs and new businesses, and really help advance the economic vibrancy of U.S. farmers and rural communities and crucially, improve national resilience with a healthier population against current threats like Covid 19 and future threats. And I want to close by thanking the remarkable coalition of organizations who have come together to stand in support of the white paper and the call
00;36;37;58 to advance and strengthen federal nutrition research? Over 60 organizations representing major nonprofit advocacy organizations, businesses, investment firms, academic organizations have come together and our statement of support has been released on our Web site today.
00;36;55;21 [Dariush Mozaffarian]: Importantly, this meeting and this session hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, we feel is the beginning, not the end of a national conversation around strengthening federal nutrition research. So I'm so honored to have been able to participate, and I really look forward to a national conversation on how we can improve and strengthen federal nutrition research to create a stronger country with a healthier, more equitable and more sustainable food system. Thank you very much.
00;37;26;30 [Anand Parekh]: Thank you, Dr. Mozaffarian, for that summary of the important white paper. At this time, we'll move to the panel discussion and we have a great group of distinguished experts. The moderator of the panel discussion will be Secretary Dan Glickman. Secretary Glickman is a BPC senior fellow and co-chairs the prevention initiative, as well as a SNAP task force. As all of you know, he served as secretary of agriculture from March 1995
00;37;54;15 Until January 2001. Prior to becoming Secretary of Agriculture. He represented the 4th Congressional District of Kansas for 18 years in the House of Representatives. The secretary is currently the executive director, also of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a nongovernmental, non-partisan educational program for members of the United States Congress. We're thankful for his leadership. And now I'd like to pass it over to my friend and colleague, Secretary Dan Glickman.
00;38;24;43 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Thank you, Anand. Thanks for your leadership and the BPC leadership, and I especially want to thank my friend Darry Mozaffarian and for Tufts leadership in this area.
00;38;33;38 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: We have a real distinguished panel and a limited amount of time. So I'm not going to go into great detail on background. So because you're all distinguished people. But there were the old French philosopher who once said you are what you eat, I think is demonstrated today by the fact that more and more we're finding that healthy eating and healthy nutrition can build immunity and ward off diseases. And it's such an extraordinary time that we're looking at this issue at a time when thousands of Americans have died, tens of thousands as a result
00;39;03;33 of the Covid epidemic and not to mention what's happening in worldwide. So as we talk about these things, I think it's relevant to look at the context and the health challenges that we face currently. So I'm going to basically ask everybody on the panel a couple of questions. And I'm going to first start with Tracey Brown, who is CEO of the American Diabetes Association And, Tracey, you've got a distinguished career, so I'm not going to go into everything that you've done. But you of course, diabetes is one of the chronic diseases that has
00;39;37;36 caused this massive increase in federal expenditure and leads to all sorts of comorbidities, including Covid. So I would just ask you to talk about the importance of an accelerated federal nutrition research effort and how you feel about the coordination and vestment and nutrition research that we see now in the federal government.
00;40;01;47 [Tracey Brown]: Yes. So, Mr. Secretary, thank you for having me. First of all, let me say that, you know, when you think about, you know, the secretaries of HHS and USDA have talked about the fact that one of the government's most important responsibilities is to protect the health and well-being of the American public. And so I think we would all agree to that. And I also think we would all agree that having access to a healthy life is
00;40;35;57 a human right. And when you talk about the health and the well-being of Americans, you have to talk about diabetes with the fact that one out of two people living in this country with diabetes and prediabetes, that's over one hundred and twenty two million Americans. When you talk about the fact that the co morbidities exists every two
00;41;03;01 minutes, somebody is having a stroke from diabetes and its complications? Every 10 minutes somebody is having a kidney failure. Every five minutes someone is losing a limb. So when you're when you're talking about the health and well-being of Americans, you have to actually talk about diabetes. I would also say that you can't talk about controlling diabetes and improving the well-being of Americans without talking about nutrition. Full stop. It is critical. As someone who has been living personally with diabetes for 16 years and
00;41;35;15 thriving, my ability to thrive was tied to me and my nutrition and in controlling what I am digesting? And so research, coordination of research is critical.
00;41;52;18 [Tracey Brown]: The American Diabetes Association is going to continue to push for increased research coordination and then taking that to actually drive action to drive real change. When you think about the dietary guidelines, as was mentioned by Dari, there are more Americans living with a chronic condition? Those guidelines need to actually be written for all of us who are living
00;42;19;42 with diabetes to help us thrive? The second thing is when you think about those dietary guidelines, they are used to drive recommendations for school lunches and breakfasts. Is a hospital food? Food banks snap all of those things. And so let's just take lunches. Children with diabetes, there are about 23,000 children every single year diagnosed with diabetes.
00;42;48;41 You can't separate nutrition from that. So we've got to do better there. And then, as has already been mentioned, policy, we've got to use this research in coordination to drive different policy, to break down the inequities that exist from food insecurities to supermarkets and the lack there of to the food deserts and the like. So, Mr. Secretary, you can tell that I'm very, very passionate about this. We all need to come together to do more, to do better, and we need to do it
00;43;22;55 urgently.
00;43;27;29 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Tracey, I appreciate your enthusiasm. I think it's infectious and I think that with your leadership, we can move the ball forward. And I think there were improvements in the dietary guidelines, at least the recommendation so far that address some of the issues that you've raised.
00;43;43;42 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: I'd like to move to Christina Ferzli. Christina is director of corporate affairs, global corporate affairs at Ocean Spray. I would just say that my wife and I are big purchasers of ocean spray consumer goods because most of them are actually pretty good for you. But you were part of Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative in the White House. And then you were involved in leading the Milken Institute's efforts to promote innovation. Now you're at ocean spray. And so what do you see from both ocean spray and maybe from the food
00;44;17;34 industry writ large? The value in return on investment of strength strengthened federal nutrition, research for business, innovation, entrepreneurship, and your own business model. How important is this to you and your company?
00;44;34;49 [Christina Ferzli]: Thank you. Secretary Glickman, for that question and thanks to for this, as well as tests for hosting in terms of federal nutrition, research for innovation, entrepreneurship. I think the first thing that comes to mind is helping provide that single source. As you heard Darry mentioned, there is a lot of confusion, not just on the consumer side, but also on the innovation and entrepreneurship side as to what should we be doing? How can we do it?
00;45;04;04 How can we set the level playing field on nutrition, beating? And we're launching new brands or entrepreneurs are in a way that's actually beneficial, not just for the company, but also for consumers and customers as a whole. So I think that single source of truth that in attrition research can bring will really provide the base to unlock innovation in a way that we have not before.
00;45;30;43 [Christina Ferzli]: I think with that sort of set standard that everyone should and could abide by solid knowing that you're doing the right thing, you can really then not just open a multifaceted approach to research itself, but also to policy. I think that with that strong research, we think you'll see more doors open in terms of a cross-sector approach to policy, perhaps bringing in food companies earlier on in the process so that we can actually adjust certain
00;46;03;42 product portfolios or different standards based on this single source of truth that we know is accepted as a whole. And with that, I also I think that. As it comes to federal nutrition research, we can't just focus on restricting restriction, but also focus more on that food-based diet really connected to how people can change their lives and educate and communicate
00;46;26;55 and create that connection between internal and external communications. Finally, I think that cross-sector approach in terms of providing education to consumers as well as corporate America when it comes to nutrition and what's the right thing to do should be applied as we create policy as a whole within the government itself. So in short, I'd say that the value in terms of entrepreneurship and innovation is that single source of truth. And then with that that unlocking of entrepreneurship that can come with
00;47;01;39 it.
00;47;03;35 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: OK, thank you very much, Christina. Now I'd like to go to a distinguished, world renowned medical professional, Dr. William Li.
00;47;12;11 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: He's chief executive officer of the Angiogenesis Foundation. He's a respected author, as well as somebody who's interested in both nutrition and biomedical science and research. Dr. Li, why do you care about the whole issue of food and nutrition science? I mean, I ask you two questions that and then the second question is, was that how do we deal with the issue? Nutrition education for doctors and other health care professionals who
00;47;41;39 often may not see this as a very high priority when they treat patients.
00;47;48;24 [Dr. William Li]: Right. Well, as a physician, my role is help patients keep their bodies in the best possible healthy state. Attrition plays a critical role in doing this throughout our entire lifespan. From the time of baby's growing in the womb through childhood, adulthood and into the twilight years, the food we eat, all eat can activate our bodies. Hardwired health defenses is abundantly studied at the NIH, for example. And these defenses help us resist disease.
00;48;15;29 And we know this through the bio pharmaceutical efforts. The great breakthrough drugs. But food is actually an alternative, a parallel opportunity to be able to enhance those health defenses. And by the same token, making poor choices can degrade those defenses. And so what modern nutrition science is teaching us in the medical community, that is, that foods can make this happen and we're now beginning to bring Lifesciences to that, been used to develop pharmaceuticals, to study foods. This is actually food as medicine, and it makes food enter the realm that
00;48;53;34 it's been missing as a missing tool, the toolbox of health care.
00;48;57;23 [Dr. William Li]: The truth is that the science of nutrition has been evolving and we're moving now beyond simply supplementing missing nutrients, which once a core of nutrition for the past century. And the new frontier that we're entering is one where we can understanding how to add specific nutrients in Whole Foods on an individual level and also dietary patterns in order to change the arc of disease. And that's actually something that is so important to all stakeholders in nutrition and in health. And I think that's really important to understand that this is not about
00;49;30;37 food alone, but it's really understanding how the body responds to what we put inside it at the molecular, at the cellular and at the whole system level. So the opportunity to merge the scientific powers of different fields agricultural sciences, food sciences, food technology, life sciences, public health, and even today in the Covid 19, there are to understand how diet influences our immunity. In my work in the past six months, there's been an intense focus in looking at how dietary factors influence our ability to resist the corona virus and
00;50;01;53 explore what types of dietary interventions might be helpful to fight and speed recovery from the organ damage caused by Covid 19. For example, even when a vaccine becomes available, we're beginning to ask are there ways that nutrition can help medicines work, make those vaccines work even more effectively? Now, as it relates to the question about nutrition education, I can't think of another topic that's more important than health care, because nutrition
00;50;30;31 education for physicians is one of the most critical gaps that exist today.
00;50;33;57 [Dr. William Li]: Only one in five medical schools in the United States requires medical students to take nutrition course on an average. Medical schools only offer about 19 hours of coursework of nutrition over the entire course of education and very few postgraduate nutrition courses or training opportunities available for doctors. And so, you know, it's a dilemma that every doctor faces because every physician knows that their patient is going to ask them about
00;51;04;25 what foods they should eat when they're sick and what foods they should eat to stay healthy. So as federal nutrition research advances, we have to bring that new knowledge, the fruits of our research to doctors and training, as well as to health professionals in the field. Imagine how much more powerful our health system could be in the United States if patients knew they could not only get prescriptions for drugs from their physicians, but also evidence based recommendations for the
00;51;32;55 foods they should eat to help them improve their health. On an individual level now, nutrition is also vital because foods can help prevent disease. And this is every bit as important in controlling health care costs as the investment in biotechnology for breakthrough disease treatments. Because while drugs can take years to develop foods, have immediacy. And this is why medical education and the federal investment in nutrition research is so important.
00;52;01;04 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: You when you looked at the presentation of the graphs of Dr. Mozaffarian and showing that about one or two percent of the federal research dollars at USDA and NIH are going to nutrition.
00;52;13;20 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Maybe I got the figures a little bit wrong, but it's still very, very small. What's the response to that.
00;52;21;06 [Dr. William Li]: Well, we need to actually invest further, and I think that we need to actually look at how we prioritize are our fixed resources in ways that are going to pave the way for the future. What I'm particularly interested in is what can we do for young people? How do we feed our children, regardless of what sectors they come from? And how do we actually address the disparities that occur in childhood, that also exist in their families in a way to actually prevent the diseases
00;52;50;32 that will develop in adulthood later? This is how we pay it forward by investing now. And this isn't a critical area for federal investment in nutrition research.
00;53;01;53 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Thank you, Doctor Li. And last but not least, is Francesca Weaks. You are a very much involved in the public health community. Master of science. You are the health and policy research manager of the NAACP. And I would just ask you to comment on the relationship between poor food and nutrition, food insecurity and health disparities. What we're seeing now, for example, of the Covid crisis, that people in
00;53;34;02 minority communities are much more impacted in terms of mortality than the population as a whole? And that's just this one set of disease diseases we're finding right now. So I wonder if you might speak to this issue. .
00;53;49;48 [FRANCESCA WEAKS]:: Yes.
00;53;50;12 [FRANCESCA WEAKS]: Thank you for having me. And thank you for that question. We have been so focused on what people are eating and indeed, that's very critical. But one big factor that we often miss is how our families are eating and particularly in our black communities and communities of color. How are we getting our food? Right now, with Covid 19, 4 out of 10 Black and Hispanic families are suffering right now from food insecurity. So as we're sitting here going into this national pandemic, we're having families who are suffering, not knowing how to feed, feed their children,
00;54;21;15 feed their families from day to day? Over the past four months, we've doubled the numbers in our communities. What we see them doing, security in the black community and food insecurity isn't a new issue that we've seen during Covid 19 This is the issue we've seen for decades, and this is systematic issues that we have in our communities. We've seen this based off of research and policy that has been in place and how this is built up to create a system that allows people not be sure day to day that their families are fed. Right now, black and Hispanic households with children are now nearly twice
00;54;53;39 as likely to be struggling with food insecurity as similar as white families right now. So sometimes, you know, we talk a lot about what we eat, but we don't consider that some families aren't eating at all. Some few families don't have enough food at all.
00;55;07;13 [FRANCESCA WEAKS]: Our how our families can afford or have access to food. So we have to address that. How and that how is affordability? Right now, unemployment, we're seeing two million people right now that are unemployed or have been laid out or underemployed. When your income insecure, that means that leads to food insecurity? And we see. Right. They are trying to increase by 50 percent the snap benefits for families. But inconsideration, we also have to increase that threshold at the income level. And right now, with families go back to work, they may not get the same
00;55;39;20 hours. They may not have the same income. They may be cut down. And we're not making sure that we step up in our policy to make sure our families are fed and have those resources. We're going to be looking to collaborative issues when the schools open up next month. The other issue that goes with that is where people getting food? I for instance, Live in Baltimore and 50 percent of our population do not drive. They do not have access to get a car and just go to a grocery store. And most of our grocery stores are stores that do provide healthy options
00;56;07;15 are four or five miles out. Most of them are actually not within the city, within our city limits and most of our zoning. We have a lot of smaller convenience stores and these can be a source don't always provide fresh fruits and vegetables.
00;56;19;34 [FRANCESCA WEAKS]: So we look at this is not only just a nutrition problem, but this is a social determinants of health problem. We have food deserts, zoning issues, transportation issues and gentrification issues. All these issues have led up to us not being able to make sure that we have the proper nutrition for black communities. And we offer a poor quality of nutrition. If someone has to travel on a bus once a month for an hour or take two or three buses just to get to a grocery store, they're going to get foods that
00;56;48;47 are non-perishable. They're going to get these foods that are probably high, sodium high and chemicals high and different preservatives. So that way they have enough food to last their family for over a month. So the quality issue becomes a big concern if we're not considering all the other factors in there. The greatest thing about all of this is the why, and that's looking at health disparities. We started using the word health disparities. And that's really coded the two issue that we're talking about, which is systematic racism. And when we look at systematic racism, the color of somebody's skin is
00;57;20;43 really starting to dictate what's my civil rights and birthright are. And they're right to able to have a quality, healthy life. And that includes nutrition. So decades and decades, we're still fighting civil rights and the equality and equity. And one of the biggest things we have to realize, nutrition is a right.
00;57;37;21 [FRANCESCA WEAKS]: Being able to have access to gardens, fresh fruits, vegetables, that is a right in our community is not something that we should have to beg or we should have to keep putting policies. And that should be a given. So in order for us to get to this place where black humans and Hispanic are the seeing to have the same value, we have to make sure that our research, our policies and our resources are equally invested into the. The White Paper really does address the availability for us to be able to open a new research center. And how this research center will be able to make sure that we have some
00;58;08;45 quality and equity. We're making research, resources and policies.
00;58;15;36 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Thank you. You know, I just we have about a couple of minutes before we get to the public here. But I've appreciated all your remarks in the white paper talks a lot about how discombobulated a lot of the public and federal efforts are on these areas and a lot of agencies involved. And perhaps it's created some confusion to the public. But I'd ask if any of you wanted to respond, how do we better educate the consumer so the average member of the public will have a better idea about
00;58;47;35 what to eat or what not to eat? Recognizing there are a lot of reasons why people see different things in their diets. But what how do we take all this federal money that's being spent and better organize it to help consumers make the right choices?
00;59;03;34 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: I think the dietary guidelines are part of your sleep, but would anybody want to comment on that? How about my friend from the Diabetes Association? I mean, after all you mentioned, you really have half the people in the country are diabetic or prediabetic. OK, so what could you do to help those people do a better job of picking the right foods?
00;59;25;19 [Tracey Brown]: We have to make it simpler. Mr. Secretary, any one of the things that is so important, I think, is you need to not only have new research, but you actually have to leverage cultural trends and understand where culture is going. So one of the things from a cultural perspective is things need to be frictionless and simpler. And so we've got to figure out how to take all of the tools, the knowledge and the education and break them down into snackable, bite size ways to
01;00;00;58 absorb. The second thing that I will say is what we're talking about is a change in behavior. And in order to change behavior, you have to emotionally connect with people and you have to establish trust. And that means you need to see them, hear them and understand them. If we are creating education, materials and tools where we don't really
01;00;26;17 understand the culture of who we're delivering the tools for, they will not be adopted. So simpler see, hear, and understand and follow this notion of establishing trust to get people to change their behavior.
01;00;45;23 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Anybody else wish to comment on that, particularly what role the government and all these agencies can do to help people understand. With all of the bureaucracy that's out there, not that they don't do a good job, that they may be hearing a myriad of different voices. Dr. Li, do you have any comments?
01;01;07;05 [Dr. William Li]: Yes, I think that, you know, the in addition to everything that Tracey Brown just said, the trust, the cultural alignment, that can be clarity, communications, I think what's really important that we need we all need to speak with a common language of truth, which comes from science. And this is really where the investment in research by the government can actually play a huge role. Because just like we study medicine support to treat diseases, so too can the food as medicine initiatives actually provide this common backbone of
01;01;40;02 what we actually know from actual research.
01;01;42;58 [Dr. William Li]: So this is not about conjecture.
01;01;44;57 [Dr. William Li]: This is not about wishful thinking. This is about what this is. Science actually show how that can actually be complicated. And this is where we need to have good communicators that can take complex knowledge and break it down into those culturally relevant, easy to understand, easy to act on messages that our communities can respond to. And then also, I think that all of the other stakeholders, including manufacturers and food innovators and grocers and growers and frankly, even at the level of the family and schools, we all need to be able to feel
01;02;16;25 comfortable speaking that language.
01;02;18;29 [Dr. William Li]: And so I think there's a lot of education that could be used to raise the level of literacy when it comes to food as health. But it all needs to be based on facts that come from science.
01;02;42;31 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Let's see. Well, I have several questions and I'm going to let it open. One question I have is from Tufts Nutrition, from Twitter, what are some of the opportunities that can come from a strong and coordinated investment in national nutrition research? And maybe that's reducing health care spending, increasing health equity, promoting innovation in agriculture and sustainability. But if we had a better coordinated system, what might come out of this that
01;03;17;36 could help people in this process? I. Maybe, Christina, you're after all you not that you represent the whole food industry or but you are the only representative of the industry here. And maybe you have might have some comments. How could it help you as a food company?
01;03;37;31 [Christina Ferzli]: And I'd also like to comment just quickly on your previous question in terms of what can be communicated? One thing we'd love to do is public private partnership and not only just focus on the benefits of nutrition and prevention, but also the cost savings and the improvement on communities. Which leads you to this question? Is that stronger coordinated investment will help build that business case that has been building for the last 10 years of doing well while doing good? You can show strong research that connects consumer that will then benefit
01;04;07;26 from your products and improve their health and therefore hopefully rebuy.
01;04;11;14 [Christina Ferzli]: I mean, that would be a slam dunk, right? So you see that on sort of the person level as it comes to the family level. What you can then see is increased access? If companies are able to innovate and grow their portfolios in a way that focuses more on nutrition, ideally you'd see access for families as a whole improve there. And that that leads to my third piece, which is communities. You know, if you see that prevention, you see that improved health on a personal level. You see that access, that desire for that healthier cooking grow on a
01;04;41;39 family level. You will see that benefit in communities. You just come down on health care, which can then be reinvested in more different efforts such as education and just improve overall. So I think that you can see you can make that business case of doing well while doing good and in turn be able to communicate those. If it's not just on the nutritional, but on a societal level as a whole. In my opinion.
01;05;08;24 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: OK. I have a question which I think is very relevant. This is from Paul Kelly at YouTube. Do we expect any nutrition policies in the anticipated Covid 19 response legislation later this summer? Now, I realize not all of you are in the in the legislative world, but is that's something that we should be pushing for in and whatever legislation that's coming down the pike.
01;05;36;08 And I suspect we are going to see more legislation.
01;05;39;04 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Anybody want to respond to that?
01;05;45;55 [FRANCESCA WEAKS]: I can say from the national NAACP, One thing we have worked on in our federal advocacy office has been working a lot with our congressional leaders, looking at what is imperative that we make sure we have you on this Covid 19 period to impact our communities? And one thing we're really looking at is how are we making sure that right now, at this current moment, that we are addressing the needs in our communities? So throughout the different acts of come out, the hero acts and the several different series of acts that are coming out. We are looking at how can we make sure that those basic necessities, food,
01;06;17;10 shelter, water safety, is covered in our policies? Our federal advocacy team is working very closely to make sure that even after Covid 19, that these are policies that aren't just temporary, but ways that we can institute them permanently. We talk about it's to your earlier question. You asked about, you know, how can we make sure that science is taken is being translated? You know, we have to make sure as sensible people put
01;06;49;26 computers in our policy.
01;06;57;52 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: On that. OK. I have a question here from Emily from YouTube. What does research point to as the most effective nutrition education approaches? And then how do we determine the evidence of eating behavior change? It is a part of that. OK. So if our goal in this research effort is to get information out there to consumers.
01;07;24;23 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: What's the most effective nutrition education approach to consumer? Anybody wish to comment on that?
01;07;37;25 [Dr. William Li]: I think Tracey Brown and .DA really nailed it when she said, you really want to make sure that you're addressing the community at the cultural level and you want to make sure that there's relevance and alignment with the message people are able to hear not just what you want them to hear, we want them to hear, but what they actually are prepared to hear. So there's it's really sort of a push and pull. It's a relationship. It's understanding what how our community to respond. Because, you know, our country is made up of so many different types of
01;08;10;02 communities. This is why a one size fits all approach to nutrition education is not going to make sense. We have to, you know, in the same way we talk about precision nutrition. I think there's another dimension of that is precision nutrition education that is actually tailored to the community.
01;08;29;59 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Any other comments on that?
01;08;31;59 [Tracey Brown]: Yeah, I was getting in that in addition to, you know, understanding the trust and, you know, understanding the cultural relevance. We also have to make sure that we are unlocking the tools that are required to drive the behavior change. Right. And so that is buried in this whole thing, as we have been talking about,
01;09;00;35 is the health inequity that is limiting access to things. Education is one thing. Of the tools that you need to manage your diet, your ability to actually get the right healthy foods and diet.
01;09;19;08 [Tracey Brown]: All of these things are actually combined. So there is no one you know, one thing that's going to solve the problem. But what I will say is, as we see the research and we know what the research is telling us, what we're really trying to do is change behavior and change society in order to do that. You actually have to make sure that the tools that help you with that behavior change are in the hands of the people who actually need them.
01;09;48;34 Tools like, you know, continuous welcome coast monitors. If you think about diabetes, things like having access, as Francisca already talked about, access to the right foods, fruits and vegetables in a lot of these communities that are disproportionately affected. What you have is fast food and you have convenience stores? So perhaps we can actually start to influence the establishments that are
01;10;17;12 already in the community to provide the right things. But you also have to provide the right tools.
01;10;24;39 [Christina Ferzli]: And just to build on that. Thanks, Tracey, for that. I do think that we should note that modern nutrition research is so young it has not been something that's been established for hundreds of years. I think we need to recognize the work that is still to come. And this investment we're speaking of now should just be the start building on Tracey and Dr. Li. I feel we need to grow it to address intersexual environmentalism and how certain sustainability factors address nutrition in certain communities and target that as a whole.
01;10;54;52 [Christina Ferzli]: We're talking about a first step here, not a last step. And we'll just keep that in mind as we continue this conversation.
01;11;03;30 [Francesca Weaks]: I the one thing that I really think is just as a as a researcher. I think it's very critical that we may also make sure that we change our behaviors. We can't expect our communities to change their behaviors if we're not changing our language in behaviors as well. So if we want to educate our communities, we first have to educate ourselves on the issues at the root of the issues in order to be able to help our communities.
01;11;30;48 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: OK. So I have two more questions that I'm going to try to make sure we have time to answer. I think that the one question I would have, and I don't know if anybody would care to answer it, is the role of agriculture, production, agriculture. What we are seeing is more and more diversification of agriculture in this country, where people, for example, all over the country are producing fruits and vegetables to the extent that the weather allows? And we're moving away from just monoculture agriculture. So the role of farmers and agriculture in supplying the kinds of foods that
01;12;04;22 consumers will eat and also that are healthy. That's part of this mix. Would anybody want to comment on that? USDA, of course, is the lead agency in doing a lot of the food research, but it's also the agency that provides enormous amounts of help to farmers and ranchers around the country.
01;12;23;42 [Tracey Brown]: Yeah. I mean, Dan, I'll start by saying I think this is an important ingredient into solving this problem. Look, you know, one of my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein that says we can't solve problems using the same thinking that we used to create them, which means with research, with diversity of thought, with innovation. We have to bring all of this to the table if we want to solve these problems and providing innovative ways to create more availability of the
01;13;00;08 fresh fruits and vegetables that are needed. Again, we don't need more research to tell us that healthier foods lead to healthier health outcomes. What we have to do is figure out how to get more and the access to the places that need it? And so I think the role that farmers in agriculture, an innovation and new
01;13;23;59 supply, change in distribution methods, all of those things are important. If we want to solve this issue.
01;13;34;45 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Totally. How many people are involved? It's a complicated issues. And so you have to involve a lot of parties. I would ask this question, maybe Christina is the one to talk to first. And that is as it has to do with the issues of marketing and advertising. So when a kid comes home from school and turns on TV or even in social media, you rarely see you might see cranberries advertised. Certainly your products. But you often will see foods that are very high in fat, high calorie, high
01;14;09;54 and sodium.
01;14;10;52 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: And the marketing of foods has a lot to do with what people eat, particularly people who are young people who are glued to a television set all their lives? And that's got to be part of this issue as well. I wonder if any of you have any comments on that. And maybe I'll start with Christina.
01;14;29;04 [Christina Ferzli]: Sure. Yes. You will turn on the TV and see advertisements for food that might not be healthy. I think this is a place where public private partnership can really excel. I think we were just talking about incentives in terms of farmers and receiving aid if they provide access, which I fully agree would be important. As a farmer owned co-operative. But as we turn to marketing, what? Why aren't we devolving the same programs there? Why aren't ads for healthier, which is food in some way given a benefit
01;15;02;17 over those that might be deemed not? I agree with Tracey. We don't need any more research that tells us that good food will result in good health. But we what we do need is more investment in that communication piece. And programs that that work there. During my time at the Partnership for a Healthier America supporting Let's Move commitments. We'd work with with large corporations included, dedicating a certain percentage of their marketing budget to their portfolio that was healthier
01;15;29;01 than not. How can we expand that? How can we make that something that is more mainstream? As we know, children watch those ads and habits form in those first two to five years of life.
01;15;40;23 [Christina Ferzli]: So in my opinion, I think, yes, it's important. Yes, it needs to change and we need to come together and break down silos in terms of public private partnership to incentivize that change. Just one last comment. If your competitor is doing it and you're not and they're selling and you're not. It's a really hard business case to say, let's not do this and let's let them get ahead. But if there was that public prior partnership or that benefit to sort of
01;16;08;44 level that playing field and reward doing right. I think you've got a long way.
01;16;16;58 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Any other comments on that issue of marketing and advertising of food and how it relates to this issue? I wonder if we ever did a lot of research done. You know, I as I say, you know, we don't see a lot of strawberries or blueberries or cranberries advertise. We generally see processed food advertised. A lot of that, not all, but a lot of that processed food has high degrees of sodium and fat in it.
01;16;44;32 And it began maybe that becomes part of their normal diet. I mean, we're not going to totally change consumer choice in this country. After all, people have the right to choose the kind of food that they want to, but perhaps increased research into those areas would help people make the right decision. I just don't want to know if there's any further comment on that.
01;17;06;07 [Dr. William Li]: Well, Dan, certainly there.
01;17;11;13 [Dr. William Li]: I was going to say it's certainly there's opportunities to really drill down into why certain foods can enhance our health. And I think there's you know, as Christina actually mentioned earlier, we're at the beginning of a new field. There's so much more for more so much more room for us that should grow in this research. But the communication the thing about food is it's immediacy. And so I think that the thing that I really like that we've discussed is it's the opportunity to do reward, to incentivize responsible
01;17;45;17 communications. And let's call it marketing. Let's just call it communications. And I think there's a real public hunger as far as the awareness of the importance of healthy food rises to be able to have government and industry, the public private partnerships actually team up work together in order to be able to lift everybody up to a higher water level when it comes
01;18;08;49 to what is said and what is heard about nutrition?
01;18;15;54 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Tracey, you had you wanted to speak on this?
01;18;20;09 [Tracey Brown]: Yeah, I did. I believe, Dan, This is a huge issue, again, before stepping into this role at the American Diabetes Association. I spent many years running advertising agencies, as well as working for some of the largest CPG companies and retailers.
01;18;45;37 The marketing works that that's why people do it right. You find a way to have a compelling story or a soundbite that emotionally connects with someone and that drives them to a certain behavior.
01;19;04;22 [Tracey Brown]: I think it's everybody's responsibility to do the right thing for this country. And so if, you know, we can get to a place where organizations and companies can continue to drive profitability and profits from healthier foods to Christina's point, they're more likely to do it right.
01;19;32;16 There is a money aspect to all of this, the economic aspect to all of this. But there also is the just what's the humanly right thing to do aspic. And I think in today's times, in order to break down, as we've already talked about, this is very complicated. In order to break all of this down, you have to have two sides with this. We've got to think about the economic side of this. We have to think about the human rights side of this. And by the way, if we let more people excessively being able to get the
01;20;07;08 right foods and nutrition, the downstream impact to this country is tremendously better. Diabetes costs this country three hundred and twenty seven billion dollars a year. If we can get people eating better. That actually helps this country in a hole. So it's complicated. But we've got to there's an economic aspect to this. There's a do.
01;20;33;56 Right. What was the right thing to do for human beings and what is the right thing to do for this country? So I think this is a big thing and people will do marketing because it works.
01;20;46;17 [Francesca Weaks]: All right. All right, one quick thing i will add to that is just that one thing is we've seen a lot in communities of color.
01;20;55;56 [Francesca Weaks]: We see a lot of mixed messages. And these messages come from advertising. They come from the research community. They come from academia. They come from several different ways. And we do research in communities of color. They always look at our trusted and credible resources. So who are those people? They listen to? Who are those people we depend on to get those messages? And we found out that we may hear stuff directly from somebody that they trust within their community. A community leader, maybe a researcher is my food from academe who's come there, who's not only working in the media research, but also trying to
01;21;26;21 implement and change the problems in that community. We see that they are more respected and more responses to that. So if we go into communities and spite what they're saying in marketing and communications on TV, we're making sure we're giving clear, concise, correct information when we go into communities. Then the advertising becomes less of a less problem. And we can't control, again is the economic issue. We can't always control that communications, that marketing. We know that the dollar drives that. But again, our relationships in the communities can drive a different
01;21;55;37 behavior that we would like to see. So it really is a charge for us, for those who work in research, who work in communities, to make sure that we're putting out a clear message and that we're not competing with the communications and marketing, but we're actually being a benefit and credible in the communities.
01;22;11;58 [Secretary Dan Glickman]: Well, you know, this has been a great reflection, and I would just summarize by saying that, you know, there are a lot of issues involved here. Chronic disease. Good information, right? Science. I think that the white paper addresses these things incredibly well. It's always struck me that people buy foods on the basis of cost taste. And I think one of the things that you have all pointed out is health needs to be an other key part of the decision making process.
01;22;42;23 No matter how good something is for you, if it doesn't taste good. People won't eat it or drink it. So that's the human side of this picture. And then you have to talk about the cultural side of the picture. And, you know, we spend most of our time when we're not sleeping, eating and working. And so food is such an important part of this. And what this white paper has done is put a great perspective of how we can improve the nation's health, the nation's national security, by improving
01;23;13;10 what we eat, how we eat and how we all respond to that. So saying that I'm going to turn it back over to Anand who will conclude or close in any way he wants to. It's been a pleasure joining with you folks four very talented people on this. Anand?
01;23;35;12 [Anand Parekh]: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and thank you to all the panelists for your passion as well as expertise. I also want to thank all of our speakers.
01;23;42;07 [Anand Parekh]: Previously, this has really been an excellent session, thanks to Tufts University and Dr. Mozaffarian and for their leadership. And once again, thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation for their support. We've covered so many important issues today from the need for greater investments in federal nutrition research to the need for better coordination across the executive branch. We have multiple departments and agencies involved here.
01;24;07;51 We talked about the importance of public education, precision education. You know, we realize that our country is not homogenous. We need to make sure we tailor evidence-based messages to various sub populations. That's critical. We talked about the need for health professional education as well, whether it's physicians or others. The theme of food, it is medicine. We also talked about, I think, the very important point. Francesca mentioned that at the end of the day, it's not just the type of food where we need focus in research, but ultimately it's access to that food which relates to affordability and so many other issues related to the
01;24;45;15 social determined to help. And we ended on this theme that good health must become good business. And both of those must go hand a hand in hand to so many important points that were raised by the panel today and secretary. And so we're thankful for that. Look, these issues are not going away. And we want this to be a conversation that we we continue and therefore we look forward to staying in touch with you.
01;25;10;24 [Anand Parekh]: I think one important announcement you've heard reference to the white paper today, that white paper will become public on July 20th. And we will make sure that all participants and registrants to today's events get a link on Monday, July 20th, to that white paper, which again outlines the rationale and the options for why we need to strengthen federal nutrition research. And again, thanks to the Tufts University and Dr. Mozaffarian for their leadership on that issue. So that concludes our program today. Thank you once again.
01;25;40;21 And most of all, thank you to the audience. Tremendous questions as well. And it was a great dialogue. And we look forward to being with you once again soon. Stay safe and stay well.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has further emphasized the need to bolster nutrition research as the disease has challenged the food system and exacerbated food insecurity for millions of Americans. Greater federal coordination and investment in nutrition research could accelerate discoveries across critical areas and positively impact the economy, public health, and population resilience to COVID-19 and new threats.
Join the Bipartisan Policy Center and Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy on July 15 for the release of a white paper and important discussion on key strategies to strengthen federal nutrition research and coordination.
An announcement of a coalition of major organizations – see current members to-date – who stand in support of the need for greater investment in federal nutrition research will also be made at the event.
Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation
Featured Participants:
Remarks from:
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)
James Anderson, MD PhD
Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, National Institutes of Health
Scott H. Hutchins, Ph.D.
Deputy Under Secretary Research, Education and Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D.
Dean and Jean Mayer Professor at Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University
Panel discussion with:
Tracey Brown
CEO, American Diabetes Association
Christina Ferzli
Director of Global Corporate Affairs, Ocean Spray
William Li, MD
Chief Executive Officer, Angiogenesis Foundation
Francesca Weaks, M.S., DrPH(c)
Health Policy and Research Manager, NAACP
Moderated by:
Dan Glickman
Former Agriculture Secretary; Co-chair, SNAP Task Force, BPC
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