Prescription: More Broccoli, Fewer Carbs. How Some Doctors Are Looking To Food To Treat Illness

We know how to prevent diabetes - but the U.S, medical system, with its twisted priorities, doesn’t cover prevention. A new program at the YMCA aims to build structured, effective prevention measures.

The best way to lose weight is to join a small group. This article looks at the case study of Saddleback Church in southern California that mixed faith and peer support to help congregates lose weight, including the pastor. Surveys found that 72% of participants lost weight as a result of the program.

Programs to get fresh produce carts to areas with no access to healthy food work best when government and determined entrepreneurs team up. Success from this model is evident in New York City, where the city has incentivized the selling of fruits and vegetables by street vendors in areas that are in the most need of the produce.

The lack of access to healthy food has always been a problem for the financially unstable. Food stamps can now be used to buy fresh produce at farmers markets, but greater success could be achieved by getting grocery stores involved.

The Canadian federal government has identified bullying as a national problem. Roots of Empathy, based in Toronto, encourages empathy in elementary kids by having them interact with babies.

The life-saving vitamin folic acid is added to flour in the United States, but Hispanics tend to eat little flour. Adding folic acid to corn flour would reduce birth defects in Hispanic women in the U.S.

With child obesity on the rise, public school students have lacked the motivation and access to eat healthy food. Different programs around the country aim to improve student diet in public schools, including Real Eats for Academics and Life in Los Angeles and Cornell’s Smarter Lunchrooms Movement, by emailing nutrition report cards to parents, presenting the healthy food with aesthetic pleasure, and the arrangement of the food for access.

Physical illnesses trigger and exacerbate poverty because costs are too high to treat them. The Associação Saúde Criança in Rio de Janeiro counsels helps by assisting families with services such as food, medicine, vocational training, housing, and legal aid, which helps mothers achieve their personal goals.

Despite significant increases in funding and advances in biomedical research, the rates of new treatments and drugs for illnesses that reach the market every year have plummeted. A group called the Myelin Repair Foundation, along with several other foundations, uses an intensely goal-directed and collaborative method to tackle the bottleneck.

While weight loss can be challenging to maintain, different structures are being created to help. Certain support groups, financial incentives, and tough love are proving to be effective.