About This Initiative

About the Food Is Medicine Initiative

In September 2022, the White House hosted a Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and issued a corresponding National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health with federal actions outlined across 5 pillars designed to achieve the bold goals of ending hunger and reducing the burden of diet-related disease while advancing healthy equity by 2030. The strategy included multiple Food Is Medicine (FIM) initiatives in “Pillar 2 — Integrate Nutrition and Health.” 

To accelerate progress on these actions, HHS established the FIM Initiative to Unify and Advance Collective Action. The initiative, championed by the Secretary of HHS and managed by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, aims to develop and implement a federal strategy to reduce nutrition-related chronic diseases and food insecurity to improve health and racial equity in the United States. This strategy includes diet-related research and programmatic efforts that will increase access to FIM interventions.

FIM approaches that focus on integrating consistent access to diet- and nutrition- related resources are a critical component to achieve this goal. The approaches are increasingly present across many communities and systems. There’s also increasing federal investment and action to support FIM approaches in a variety of settings.