Physicians can improve diets of patients who live in food deserts by providing nutrition materials, training in food preparation, and promoting nutritious food availability in communities where they practice.

Millennium Development Goals on nutrition and health seek to end hunger and significantly reduce malnutrition and premature death by 2025. Health systems and health professionals have important roles in meeting these goals.

Focusing on social processes contributing to marginalization can help clinicians and policy makers mitigate food insecurity risk through improved patient-centered care.

Produce prescription programs can expand patient's food choices and provide financial incentives to change consumption behaviors. If these programs are not linked to established government assistance programs, however, growers could be at risks for bearing the cost.

Sociocultural and economic factors drive transition from plant-based to animal-based protein sources in rapidly developing and urbanizing countries of South Asia and Southeast Asia. Better understanding the health impact of this transition requires integrating epidemiological and social science research methods.

Physicians should be aware of the powerful impact celebrities’ cancer narratives can have on patients’ experiences of their illnesses and treatment decisions. Partnering with celebrities is one strategy for delivering evidence-based health information and messaging to the public.

When patients look for strategies to improve their overall health, diet and nutrition are often a logical place to start—after all, what we consume has enormous impact on our susceptibility to disease and disability. But health care professionals don’t always have the time or expertise to address nutrition effectively in a clinical encounter, and might not know how to respond to broader issues around food availability in their community. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk about why clinicians should care about food ethics and what they can do to address nutrition in clinical and community settings. Our guests were Dr. Jessica Fanzo, Dr. David Katz, and Haley Swartz.

A graphic memoir documents clinical and ethical disagreements and decision points throughout a paramedic team’s time with an incarcerated patient in labor.