Over 1000 US Mayors Pledge To Support Plant-Based Food Initiatives to Improve Public Health
The resolution was supported by 1,400 US mayors, and aims to promote healthy plant-based foods to combat lifestyle-related chronic diseases.
Over 1,400 US mayors have supported a resolution to promote plant-based initiatives to help improve public health and reduce food-based emissions.
The resolution, called “A Plant-Based Approach has Promise to Address Chronic Disease, Environmental, and Fiscal Burdens Facing Cities Across the Nation”, was introduced by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who himself has already led many plant-based initiatives in his city.
Adams’ various initiatives have shown positive results in many areas, and now the resolution seeks to encourage other cities to follow suit and promote similar initiatives that encourage an uptake in the consumption of healthy plant-based foods.
The resolution was ratified at this year’s U.S. Conference of Mayors, an annual event which gathers mayors from over 1,400 cities in the country. Specifically, the agreement states that "the United States Conference of Mayors supports the upstream approach to combat chronic disease, the climate crisis, and support a more sustainable fiscal trajectory similar to the City of New York utilizing a plant-based approach.”
Adams at a recent event promoting the health benefits of plant-based food in NYC. Credit: Eric Adams
The move comes as there is growing concern that the nation is currently on an unsustainable trajectory of record rates of lifestyle-related chronic diseases. Statistics from the CDC state that 60 percent of US adults have a chronic disease and 40 percent of adults have two or more chronic diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, or type 2 diabetes. These are leading causes of death and disability in the country and are primary drivers of the nation’s $4.1 trillion annual health care spending.
Speaking to VegNews, Eric Adams explained that “the resolution adoption is incredibly significant as it signals the commitment of mayors from cities across the United States and recognizes on a national level that plant-based approaches are undoubtedly part of the solution to the chronic disease, climate change, and health care cost issues we are facing”.
What Is New York City’s Plant-Powered Approach?
The resolution notes that Adams has received national recognition for New York’s various health initiatives that have put plant-based foods at the forefront.
These include public schools in New York introducing an entirely vegan menu every Friday as part of the Plant-Power Fridays initiative. Aimed at tackling healthcare crises like childhood obesity, childhood diabetes, and asthma, the scheme results in around 1.1 million school children eating plant-based meals at school at least once a week.
Schools, hospitals and other public institutions in NYC have been taking a plant-power approach to help improve public health.
Hospital menus also received a plant-based makeover, with New York City public hospitals now serving plant-based meals as the default option. While patients are still welcome to request meat options, the program has proven an effective way to encourage healthier choices, with more than half of all patients choosing the plant-based meals despite only 1 percent of patients actively following a vegan or vegetarian diet.
Another initiative which has been particularly effective is the launch of a dedicated Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program at select hospitals in the city, which has seen patients experience significant improvement in their cardiometabolic health, including weight loss, improved blood sugar, and reduction of other risk factors.
As well as improving patient health, the switch to plant-based foods for hospitals has also saved the hospital system approximately $500,000 annually when compared with the standard meals served previously, and helped to reduce the city’s food-based carbon emissions.
"The City of New York has been an exemplary model on which other cities can build, and we urge that this resolution be broadly embraced to improve our nation's health,” said Beth Frates, the president of The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), a national society of medical professionals who advocate for improved education to help people live healthier lifestyles.
The Power of Plants for Public Health, the Planet, and the Economy
The resolution says that a plant-predominant eating pattern centered on the consumption of whole, minimally processed fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole-grains, nuts, and seeds has been shown to prevent, treat, and bring into remission chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.
Such an eating pattern also relieves environmental stress "one meal at a time, as plant-based eating patterns place significantly less resource demands on the environment compared to meals found in the standard American diet”.
And "by working to create healthier populations, we thereby lessen health care costs and their associated outsized presence on our future balance sheets."
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