Health & Well-being

We aim to amplify the fundamental role that food systems play in creating health and well-being in all ecosystems, human and non-human communities, making the impact of food systems on health and well-being more visible.

Through our work on health and well-being, we aim to see:

• Bolstered knowledge of and evidence for the positive and negative health externalities of food systems, leading to systemic solutions toward truly healthy, sustainable food systems.
• Support of sustainable food and agriculture systems by government and private sector through the identification and highlighting of current policies that undermine healthy food, and the amplification of new policies that promote health.
• Increased understanding of food system reform strategies and effectiveness in grant-making and investing through the development of collaborative philanthropic approaches.

Highlights from our health and well-being work include:

Systemic Solutions for Healthy Food Systems: The Positive Health Benefits and Impacts of Sustainable Food Systems
The Global Alliance has launched an initiative in collaboration with sustainable food systems consultant, Tasting the Future that aims to compile diverse evidence about the positive health benefits and impacts of food systems, identify success stories that demonstrate how food systems can be managed for health, and highlight policies that promote health.

The research and stakeholder engagement supported by the Tasting the Future team will generate key insights and inputs for discussion by the Global Alliance and partners at meetings, through webinars, at a major convening in the fall of 2019, and at the Global Alliance’s next International Dialogue.

Unravelling the Food Health Nexus
Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus: Addressing practices, political economy, and power relations to build healthier food systems – a report commissioned by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, and written by IPES-Food (the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems) – provides a comprehensive overview of the health impacts of food systems, identifying the channels through which food systems affect human health, and how prevailing power relations and imperatives in food systems help to shape our understanding of the impacts they generate. The report asks why evidence gaps persist, why negative impacts are systematically reproduced, and why certain problems are not politically prioritized.

We have engaged in several follow-up activities to share this work, including hosting a webinar attended by over 500 participants with an interest and area-expertise in the food-health nexus.

Advancing Health and Well-being in Food Systems: Strategic Opportunities for Funders
In early 2015, the Global Alliance commissioned four scoping papers from experts-in-the-field on: 1) “Institutional Food Purchasing as a Tool for Food Systems Reform” by Olivier de Schutter, Ph.D.; 2) “Diet, Chronic Disease and the Food System: Making the Links, Pushing for Change” by Corinna Hawkes, Ph.D.; 3) “Dietary Guidelines and Sustainable Diets: Pathways to Progress” by Hugh Joseph, Ph.D. and Kate Clancy, Ph.D.; and 4) “Improving the Well-being of Food System Workers” by Molly Anderson, Ph.D., with Bama Athreya, PhD.

Global Alliance supported publications and activities: