Episode 19: Prescribing Food, Part 2: Food & Healthcare

This week on the third installment of the Prescribing Food series, host Kim Kessler welcomes Dr. Deborah Frank to Eating Matters, discussing the connection between food and healthcare. Kim asks Dr. Frank about her incredible background and how it led her to found and direct the Grow Clinic for Children at the Boston Medical Center, where malnourished kids and their families are helped by a team of doctors, social workers, and nutritionists. She goes on to share details about Children’s HealthWatch and that while malnutrition in children is not incredibly rare in the United States, it does exist and deserves to be addressed. Later in the show, Kim gets the scoop on the Preventive Food Pantry housed at the Boston Medical Center. The Food Pantry works to address nutrition-related illness and under-nutrition for low-income patients. It fills the therapeutic gap by linking physicians and nutritionists to patients. Individuals with special nutritional needs are referred to the Pantry by Boston Medical Center primary care providers who write “prescriptions” for supplemental foods that best promote physical health, prevent future illness and facilitate recovery. The Pantry is often used by patients with cancer, HIV/AIDS, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, obesity, food allergies and other chronic conditions. Tune in for a great show! This program was brought to you by Cain Vineyard & Winery. “I did a fellowship with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton in child development and realized that poor nutrition was one of the preventable and treatable causes of learning and behavioral difficulties.” [1:42] “Food is medicine.” [28:45] —Dr. Deborah Frank on Eating MattersSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.