Food As Medicine (FAM)

Food As Medicine is a growing effort to improve health by integrating food and nutrition into healthcare. The goal of FAM is to prevent and treat diet-related diseases, and reduce the need for invasive health services and healthcare costs.

FAM interventions in pediatric settings may integrate a combination of multiple benefits including food and nutrition education to optimize health and decrease food and nutrition insecurity. The FAM pyramid focuses on the many strategies available from prevention and more population-based approaches at the base of the pyramid to more direct disease management techniques at the apex of the pyramid. Although FAM includes all of these strategies, often FAM focuses primarily on the top 3 levels of the pyramid including medically tailored meals, medically tailored groceries, and produce prescription programs.