Cross-posted from NSAC

May 30th, 2012

We want to thank Becca Klein from NSAC member the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) for her contribution.  Becca is the Health & Agriculture Policy Project Director at CLF, working to bring a health perspective to federal food and agriculture policy.

Believe it or not, just because I work for an academic institution does not mean that I relish reading academic reports.  Usually, the monotonous, highly annotated text tends to make the eyelids of even the nerdy-est of nerds grow heavy.  And, yet, every once in a while, a bit of magic pops off the page, and with it the eyelids fly open.  Such was the case when I read the Institute of Medicine’s report Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation.

Okay, okay.  I have not read all 462 pages of the report, but what I did read was profound.  No, the ideas were not new, but what I was reading was a succinct summary—by one of the most respected research bodies in the nation—of connections between agriculture policy and health, and steps we need to take immediately in order to assure improved public health.  This is not the first time that the IOM or another official body has called attention to these links, but it is the first time that such an urgency has been placed on the call to better understand and address the connections.

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