Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Indexes: Ranking Systems for Sustainability and Nutrition
Two new Index Systems rank countries for sustainability and corporations for promoting health.
The Economist and Barilla have devised a new, interactive Index that ranks countries on the basis of food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, and the ability to meet nutritional challenges. Its scoring system goes from 0 (terrible) to 100 (perfect).
The top ten scoring countries are:
None of the scores is exemplary. The US rank is #26.
The Access to Nutrition Foundation (Netherlands) ranks corporations on their strategies, policies, and actions to address obesity and diet-related diseases in the US.
The overall rankings, shown here, are relatively low. Some do better than others on governance, products, accessibility, marketing, lifestyles, labeling, and engagement.
The highest scores are for labeling. The lowest scores are for accessibility.
Indexes like these are useful for understanding where we are. They should inspire us to action.
