In December, I chose the textbook for “We Are What We Eat” and the college curriculum committee has given its approval to the course. Work continues, planning goes on, and we’re still on track for the Fall course launch.
Finding the right book for a course about nutrition, food sources, public health, economics, and public policy was an interesting challenge. Ultimately, when it came tome to pick one, I settled on Dr. Marion Nestle’s What to Eat. Dr. Nestle, from her bio, is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health (the department she chaired from 1988-2003) and Professor of Sociology at New York University.
The text approaches food from the perspective of the supermarket, in an aisle by aisle, or section by section discussion of food, labels, nutrition. Our goal from the inception of this course was to blend the theory and science with the practical so that future public health leaders can influence reasonable policy.
As a storyteller, I like producing documentaries and an opportunity to produce a documentary and build a graduate course at the same time was too good to pass up.
We Are What We Eat: The nutrition, policy and public health of America’s diet is the working title of our public health elective to be tentatively offered fall 2010. It’s a graduate course, with a text book, quizzes, papers, and discussion, but what I’m setting out to do is to create five one-hour documentary interviews with our faculty to create student engagement in the course materials.
There are lots of reasons we need a course like this in a medical school, and one I find striking is this summer’s policy statement from the American Medical Association:
“Preventing disease is paramount in the provision of health care. Hospitals, physicians and nurses are ideal leaders and advocates for creating food environments that promote health. This policy is an important contribution to a prevention-based healthcare delivery system.”
The AMA’s new Sustainable Food policy builds on a report from its Council on Science and Public Health (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/475/refcomd.pdf), which notes that locally produced and organic foods “reduce the use of fuel, decrease the need for packaging and resultant waste disposal, preserve farmland … [and] the related reduced fuel emissions contribute to cleaner air and in turn, lower the incidence of asthma attacks and other respiratory problems.” Industrial food production is a significant contributor to increased antibiotic resistance, climate change, and air and water pollution.
The new AMA policy states:
- That our AMA support practices and policies in medical schools, hospitals, and other health care facilities that support and model a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system, which provides food and beverages of naturally high nutritional quality.
- That our AMA encourage the development of a healthier food system through the US Farm Bill and other federal legislation.
- That our AMA consider working with other health care and public health organizations to educate the health care community and the public about the importance of healthy and ecologically sustainable food systems.
This is an interesting time to explore this topic. There are new videos about food and sustainability, there is a growing interest in what food labels like “organic” really mean, and a slowing economy has led to interest in backyard gardens, urban gardens, back yard chickens, and our continued concerns about obesity and the health consequences to the nation.
We start shooting the 5 segments this month, shooting with a tapeless JVC GY HM 100 camera, straight to disk, which ought to speed up our post producti0n work flow.