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The rise in obesity in America began after the release of the first Dietary Guidelines.
Data from: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). National Center for Health Statistics, Division of National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Prevalence of Overweight, Obesity, and Extreme Obesity Among Adults: United States, Trends 1976–1980 Through 2007–2008. |
Everyone deserves reasonable access to information
about nutrition and to the foods that promote health. However, the health needs of our diverse
population are not being met by current food policies and by standardized
nutrition. Healthy Nation Coalition is a
non-profit grassroots organization of scientists, clinicians, public health
professionals, and individuals. We are
dedicated to changing our food, nutrition, and health systems by developing an
understanding and awareness of the social, cultural, and economic forces that
not only impact our access to nutritional information and to the foods needed to
support health, but shape our attitudes about nutrition and our relationships
to food.
A sense of community has arisen around
questioning our current approach to food and nutrition. Healthy Nation Coalition has its beginnings
in the ancestral health, Weston A. Price Foundation, and low-carbohydrate
nutrition communities. At the same time,
we reject the notion that there is one approach to diet that works for all
Americans. However, we feel that joining
these communities with other efforts underway in food system reform and
government accountability, we can foster positive changes in our food,
nutrition, and health systems that will benefit all Americans.
Our personal relationships to and
beliefs about food, nutrition, and health are multi-faceted and
idiosyncratic. In addition, each of
us—while we have much in common—is a unique metabolic puzzle. How do we encourage progress in our food,
nutrition, and health systems—which are also complex and intertwined—with an
understanding that food is not just about nutrition and that nutritional needs
are highly varied? At Healthy Nation
Coalition, our goal is to promote three key concepts to address that question:
1) Nutritional Literacy – a movement to
foster an understanding of cultural forces that shape our nutrition beliefs and
our relationships to food and food communities
2) Individualized Nutrition – a
movement towards a more-personalized approach to nutrition through essential
nutrition and N of 1 experimentation and evaluation, although the “1” can also
be a family, community, or other subpopulation
3)
Open Nutrition – a movement to raise awareness regarding the laws, policies,
institutions, and other social, economic ,and cultural forces that impact
access to nutrition information and development of sustainable systems that
produce foods that support health.
Help us create thoughtful progress towards a healthier future for all
Americans.
For more information about this effort:
Website:
www.forahealthynation.org
