HRchat Podcast

Employee Nutrition, Health Equity and Weight Management w/ Dr. David L. Katz, Dr. Dexter Shurney and Misa Nuccio

• The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 223

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Over 650 million adults worldwide are obese, a condition not only associated with various chronic and expensive diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers, but also COVID-19 complications and mortality. (World Health Organization)

In this HRchat, we'll consider nutrition in relation to health equity and weight management for chronic conditions.

Our guests this time all partner, in different ways, with our show sponsor Virgin Pulse - the well-being solution helping workers create habits that matter so they can be their best at work and at home.  They are Dr. David L. Katz, CEO at Diet ID and Founder of True Health Initiative, Dr. Dexter Shurney, Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Zipongo Inc. and Misa Nuccio, MPH. former Co-Founder & Chief Health Officer at Blue Mesa Health and current Product Marketing Manager at Virgin Pulse.

Listen to this episode to learn:

  * How some chronic diseases can be prevented through healthy lifestyle behaviors
  * Ways digital therapeutics can be used to successfully manage obesity
  * Nutrition platforms that will help increase health equity access to nutritious food for all employees
  * The social determinants that impact food choices and habits






We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   


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Speaker 1:

650 million adults worldwide are obese a condition, not only associated with various chronic and expensive diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers, but also COVID-19 complications and mortality. In this HR chat episode, we're going to consider nutrition in relation to health equity and weight management for chronic conditions. Listen to this episode, to learn how some chronic diseases can be prevented through healthy lifestyle behaviors, ways that digital therapeutics can be used to successfully manage obesity, nutrition platforms that will help increase health equity access to nutritious food for all employees and the social determinants that impact food choices and habits. In 2019, I had the opportunity to come for my first thrive summits and totally bought into the awesome things that Virgin pulse are doing to help employees across the globe. My guests, this time, all partner in different ways with our show sponsor, Virgin pulse, the well-being solution, helping workers create habits that matter so they can be their best at work and at home. And they are dr. David L Katz CEO at a diet ID and founder of true health initiative. Dr. Dexter Shurney chief medical officer and senior vice president of clinical affairs at Zipongo and Misa Nugeo, former co-founder and chief health officer at blue Messer health and current product marketing manager at Virgin pulse. Okay. So it'd be on my short introduction there. Um, I'd love it. If each of you now could take 30 seconds or so to introduce yourselves to our audience, David, why don't you go first?

Speaker 2:

Thanks very much, bill. It's great to be with you. Great to be with my colleagues. I'm a specialist in lifestyle medicine, preventive medicine and public health. My career long mission has been to do everything possible to prevent chronic disease, promote health, add years to lives, add life to years, and I'm delighted to join with you in a discussion that addresses those important issues. Beautiful Dexter. What about yourself for having me here? It's great to be a part of this dialogue. Uh, I'm also a physician I'm a double boarded and both lifestyle medicine and preventive medicine. Uh, I'm the chief operating officer, uh, food smart by the Pando and I'm also the current president for the American college of lifestyle medicine. So I look forward to our dialogue today.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. And just finally, I understand that she goes by her Royal Highness, uh, Misa, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Sure. Hi everyone. Thanks bill. My name's Misa Nuccio and my background is in public health. Um, so cancer prevention, early detection, as well as, um, diabetes prevention and other lifestyle related chronic condition. Um, I founded gloomy health, um, in 2015 co founded rather, um, which is a, uh, digital therapeutic companies, um, that specializes in reducing, um, members risks of developing certain chronic conditions. And it was acquired by Virgin pulse and this year in 2020. So now I'm working at Virgin pulse on the product marketing side and, um, get to learn a lot about and talk a lot about, um, you know, how our products work and sort of what type of difference we're making in people's lives and in, in, in, um, business outcomes.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Now listen to it. As you probably gathered by, by now, this is a bit of a different format to our usual one-on-one style interview. Um, I've got all of these, these, uh, wonderful luminaries on one call and the way we're going to do it is I'm going to ask questions of each of our guests. I've got three or four questions for each of them before we loop back in with, with all three. Um, we, with some final thoughts, they would let let's start with you. Well, my first question for you today is, uh, it's around the Beastie rates, frankly, that they're at an all time high, according to the who 650 million adults worldwide are obese a condition which is associated with various chronic and expensive diseases like heart disease and diabetes, and some cancers where we're essentially battling two pandemics right now. Okay. So you've got COVID-19 and chronic disease in your opinion, what, uh, what are the main causes of obesity? And in addition, how do our genetics versus our lifestyle behaviors influence chronic disease and obesity,

Speaker 3:

All good questions, bill. And so first I would make the case that obesity is a Canary in the coal mine of chronic disease. There's lots of debate in our society about the relative importance of obesity, because obviously it, it overlaps not just with our health, but self-esteem appearance. So it, there, there are opportunities here for bias and societal prejudice to enter in the mix. And that's very unfortunate. We can focus really just on the direct health effects of obesity and where there's more obesity. There is more diabetes, there is more coronary disease. There is more dementia, there is more stroke. There is more degenerative arthritis, not, and on it goes so first and foremost, from a public health physician's point of view from a clinician's point of view, obesity really is important to health second, absolutely right. To highlight the confluence of two pandemics and frankly there's opportunity there in the United States. For example, when COVID is severe and people under 50, it's almost inevitably because of obesity and chronic disease, and that's true around the world as well. And that means that if we modified our cardio-metabolic risk, we would acutely modify our risk for severe COVID outcomes. So again, we're not helpless, even with regard to the viral pandemic, by addressing our longstanding health, we can defend ourselves acutely against the virus while improving our health for the longterm. In terms of the root causes of obesity bill. I like to cite the work of Michael Moss. Michael is a Pulitzer prize, winning investigative journalist, two books, salt, sugar, fat, and hooked. But I particularly like an excerpt from salt, sugar, fat, and New York times magazine cover story, the extraordinary science of addictive junk food, because that explains why we have that academic obesity, frankly, it's it, most people get fat when it's easier to get fat than to stay thin because animals are adapted to eat when there's good food available. And we're no different animals are adapted to avoid vigorous exercise where they don't have to do it. And we've got all kinds of labor saving technology, but what puts this all on steroids, uh, is the story that, that Michael Moss and others have told all the big global food corporations have scientists whose job it is to engineer food. That is for all intents and purposes addictive to maximize the calories it takes to feel full. And, and frankly, this adulteration of the food spies, the major problem. And then finally, uh, uh, then there's much more to say on the topic, but I want to be as concise as possible on the issue of genes versus environmental influence. Our genes are much the same as they ever were. There's no question that we are genetically susceptible to weight gain and obesity because laying in, in a, uh, a storage Depot of energy against the advent of a rainy day favor survival in a world where calories are relatively scarce and hard to get, and physical activity is unavoidable, but those are the same genes we've always had. And we have not always had pandemic obesity. What took the native vulnerability of our genes and transformed it into a global obesity pandemic is changes in the food supply and changes in the environment. That's, that's where I would direct my attention. That's where opportunity resides.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Thank you very much. Uh, I learned a lot in that very first answer, including if one consumes most, you're gonna, uh, you're gonna help fight obesity. I wonder how Michael would

Speaker 3:

Take that translation, but it's, it's quite clever.

Speaker 1:

And same question for you, David, how can, how can we reduce the prevalence of, of being overweight and, and the risk of obesity? Okay.

Speaker 3:

For one thing, bill, we have to actually try, I routinely point out. We've never actually tried. So while the guys, the guys wearing the white hats, you know, or are trying to curtail rates of obesity, our culture at large runs on Dunkin peddles, multi-colored marshmallows as part of a child's complete breakfast and recommends Coke and Pepsi as national hydration solutions. So at the level of our culture, we have never actually tried and here too. There's a, there's a lengthy discussion to be had. And the last thing I want to do is get in the way of my colleagues, good commentary. So I'll be concise and say, I think we could succeed. If we treated obesity like drowning, we don't wait for people to drown to do something about drowning. If unfortunately, someone ever drowns, we do our best to resuscitate them. But most of our effort is directed at preventing drowning. So we have fences around pools. Every parent understands they need to keep an eye on their kids around the dangers of water. We have lifeguards at beaches. We put up signs to tell people when there are riptides and sharks and surges and stay out of the water, we do exactly the opposite for food. We tell people, come on in the water's fine. When in fact they're being invited to consume adulterated addictive, hyper processed Frankenfood. So I would say obesity as much like drowning, but we're drowning in hyper palatable calories, we're drowning and labor saving technology and the defenses against it cannot just be clinical. They must be culture wide. And again, with drowning, the clinical remedy is limited to those unfortunate few who actually do drown. And then it's a resuscitation effort. It's a cultural effort that prevents drowning 999 times out of a thousand. And we could, and we should do much the same for obesity.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So we're all living through crazy times right now. Um, uh, as we record this interview, uh, we're seeing a huge surge of the second wave of, of COVID-19 in, in many countries around the world. Um, do you think that, do you know, is it possible that you can actually improve your immunity bolster your immune system, David, by, by eating healthier foods? Or is that just a myth? If it is true, what are some of the foods that we should be eating?

Speaker 3:

It's not at all a myth bill and, and, and there are many things that could be said about the current epidemiology of COVID, but I'll avoid that except to say I'm more optimistic than many about where we are and where we're headed and I'll leave it at that. But on the specific issue of diet, food, nutrition, and immunity, our culture has the unfortunate problem of running everything through a prism of partisanship currently and refracting it into opposing extremes. And so, you know, on, on the one hand, we certainly have people overselling, superfoods and isolated nutrient solutions. And so the reaction to that action is for certain authorities to refute the relevance of, to immunity. And that's just misguided first food is the construction material for everything our body builds that includes white blood cells, antibodies, hormones, uh, or the constituents of the microbiome, all of the absolutely crucial structural elements of our immune system. Second, we know full well that dietary pattern influences inflammatory responses and that a balanced, wholesome diet optimizes those responses so that we a can fight pathogens like SARS, cov two, and B protect our healthy native tissue. And then finally, there's the critical role of diet in the epidemiology of cardio-metabolic liabilities that are the leading risk factors for adverse COVID outcomes. So there's no question about the linkage between diet and obesity, diet and hypertension, diet, and dyslipidemia diet, and coronary disease, diabetes. These are in fact, the leading predispositions other than age adverse COVID outcomes, the effect of food on those is massive and, and the best ways to optimize our immune system response minimize our risk of adverse COVID outcomes. Same answer that we would expect if ever talking about diet being good for health overall wholesome foods, balanced assemblies, mostly plants, lots of minimally processed, or whole vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds, plain water for thirst. Michael Pollan gave us a seven word answer, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. We obviously can embellish, but that's fundamentally correct. Wonderful. Thank you. I didn't hear Cheetos own unfortunate to me. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

No. I think both Michael and Michael pollen

Speaker 3:

And I left Cheetos off the list. So you would need special dispensation add Cheeto. Sorry. Okay. Well I've lost lots of extra then tools. Maybe it will make up for the Cheetos. We'll be back with you again later on. I'd like to now move on and chat a little bit with, uh, dr. Dexter Sharnee chief medical officer and senior vice president of clinical affairs at Zipongo inc. Next welcome to the show. Um, firstly, a lot of medicine is, is treating disease after someone already has it. But how important is prevention? It's certainly much easier to prevent illnesses versus treating or managers managing them. The, do you think that clinical approaches should be altered and focus more on preventative measures?

Speaker 2:

So to answer your question, I just was saying that I love David's answer in terms of, uh, obesity and drowning. Um, because I think the answer is very similar. Um, prevention is something that I think it's almost a no brainer. It should be a no brainer that we should focus more than we do on prevention. I think everyone realizes that it's so much easier to prevent something terrible from happening than to try to fix it, uh, in the aftermath. And so the same thing is true when we're talking about chronic conditions, when we're talking about obesity and I want to make a distinction though, between, uh, what typically we look at as preventive services and prevention. And, uh, if we typically look at most preventive services, if you go to your doctor for a preventive checkup, they'll, you know, they may recommend as certain kinds of lab tests, they may recommend, uh, a mammogram. If you're a woman or a PSA, if you're a man to check your prostate, to see if you might have cancer, they might recommend a colonoscopy. And all of that is good. But if you think about it, none of those things actually prevent the underlying condition that you're looking for. Um, and so it prevents, you know, greater disease or more severe disease perhaps, but it doesn't actually prevent. And so the thing that really is going to prevent this, or some of the things that we've been talking about or we'll talk about, and that's really comes back to you, our diet and other aspects of our lifestyle, how much we sleep, how much we move, how we manage our stress, our environment, and those things are key. And that's really where more prevention, uh, should be focused at. The other thing I'll just add is that those things that I just mentioned are not only good for prevention, but they're also good for treatment and, uh, actually can be used to not only prevent these diseases, but also treat these diseases to a great extent once you have them. And it's all about therapeutic dose, you know, if, if you were a smoker and you came to me and you know, you had a bad cough and I asked you how many cigarettes or packs you are smoking a day and you told me four, and I told you, well, you know, just cut back to three. You'd probably still have your, your cough. You actually have to go much further than that to see the impact. It wasn't that my advice and telling you not to smoke was bad. It was just that I didn't give you a recommendation. That was actually a third therapeutic dose. And so we need to think about some of these lifestyle things in the same way, but it's very powerful and should actually be the foundation of a lot of our therapies these days. So I think, I hope that it helps to answer that question for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Um, so myself, like a lot of people out there probably, um, certainly at the beginning of the lockdown, back in March and April, I was terribly guilty Dexter of, uh, you know, being bought in doors. And I kept going back to the fridge as if, as if, uh, the fridge had been refilled and finding myself, eating terribly unhealthy things like too much cheese and whatnot. Um, and you know, I have to admit, I, I may have put on a few pounds since then, maybe the last few months I've been trying to run at least 5k a day and whatnot. Um, it's a lot easier to put weight on than it is to lose it for sure. Uh, with, with many of us still working from home and under a lot of stress, we we're reaching for a comfort foods and we are still snacking much more frequently throughout the day and turning to those comfort foods. We also, we also know that the stress in general can cause gain. Of course, can you share some simple recipes from Zipongo to help reduce unhealthy snacking throughout the Workday?

Speaker 2:

Well, there's certainly a, a number of, uh, recipes that would fit that bill, um, in terms of, um, helping you and manage your weight. But, but let me say that, um, probably a, a, a better approach than just, you know, giving you one or two recipes is to really think about your diet pattern. Um, and part of that is planning. And so you really have to plan what you're going to eat. So you're not just snacking, uh, when the mood hits you and, uh, so you need to plan for yourself, you need to plan for your family. Um, and that really will alleviate some of this, you know, habitual, snacking. And one of the things that, uh, food smart devices with conga does is that we do allow people to plan for themselves and their family. And so that's one of the things that we need to do. The other thing I would recommend is that it's probably better, uh, to make sure that you get a good solid breakfast and not to skip breakfast. Uh, there's been some good research on this recently that shows that if we eat a good breakfast, we're less apt to eat as much during the rest of the day. And it also revs up our metabolism, so to speak. Uh, so that's something too, I think a lot of times people tend not to do as, as, as they should. And that is, we always recommend that you get a good, a good breakfast. So, um, but yeah, think about your patterns and think about how you want to plan your meals and your day. And that will really avoid some of that unnecessary snacking,

Speaker 1:

Certain industries. Um, you know, please don't just say fast food industries, are there certain industries or job roles that are more at risk for obesity than others?

Speaker 2:

You know, there's an interesting statistic. It's actually sad, but more than 70% of us are either overweight or obese. And so you might conclude from that, that all of us are in high risk job since that's the majority of Americans, but we do know, uh, some of the risk factors beyond what we eat. Some of the risk factors, we've mentioned such as stress, uh, such as lack of, uh, physical activity, such as sleep, uh, and sleep is, uh, something that we probably don't pay attention to enough because it's not only a stress or to the body, but it, it does weird things with our, our insulin resistance. It does some weird things with our appetite, with hormones that control our appetite. And so if you really look at that, then I would have to say that people that are working a night shift and you kind of have that third shift, a group of workers are probably at the greatest risk if you really think about that. So, yeah, I think that there are populations that are probably have to be a little more careful because of how they, you know, what their work schedule is. And, um, but you know, you look at the stats, we all could probably do better regardless of what our occupation.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Thank you very much now. Um, Misa, we haven't heard from you yet, uh, beyond the, the quick hello there at the top there. So, uh, I'd love to pose a couple of questions to you now, but for those of us who are still new to digital therapeutics, uh, they are evidence-based therapeutic interventions driven by high quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat medical disorders or diseases. Virgin pulse. In fact, has a suite of digital therapeutic products, the newest product called VB transformed for weight management, uh, which recently launched. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. So VP transformed for weight management is version pulses, a digital therapeutic for overweight and obese adults. And, um, as you noted bill, it is a member of a growing collection of digital therapeutics that are offered by Virgin pulse, um, to prevent, manage, treat, and reverse a variety of health conditions. Um, when BP transformed for weight management, just to give, um, a bit of a sort of framework as to how the solution works. So it's a year long, 12 months evidence-based behavior change program that helps overweight and obese adults achieve and maintain. I think that's the important word here. Um, maintain clinically meaningful weight loss through moderate and sustainable lifestyle modifications, like, um, increasing levels of physical activity and, um, engaging in monetary, excuse me, moderate dietary changes. And so, um, you know, we definitely use the no dogma approach. Um, like dr Katz said earlier, um, you know, we really do meet the members where they are uniquely on their journey. Um, and we don't sort of prescribe, um, certain types of food or activity for certain people. Um, our coaches are skilled at, um, you know, really, uh, understanding where each individual person is and sort of tailoring the program to meet, to meet them. So, um, I think that, um, it's important to just talk a little bit about the program is so we combine connected software with integrated hardware, with expert health coaching and social support. Um, so there's sort of multilayers of, of intervention within this program and it blends evidence-based and multimodal curriculum with smart health monitoring devices. Like the wireless scale that we send home, an activity tracker that our members wear with a smartphone app, um, that that's complete with behavior tracking tools like photo enabled meal logging, for example. Um, and then we also group, um, individuals into a peer support group of other VP transform members that are going through the program together. Um, so they can offer support, seek support. They all share the same, um, health goals and, um, also a professional health coach who guides and facilitates the participants and the groups using specialized coaching techniques. So we, again, just really employed this behavior change philosophy that embraces slow and steady lifestyle changes that lasts long after the program is complete because we, we know that that's, you know, the, the, the right path, the road to achieving, um, not just short-term benefits, you know, weight loss and behavior change, but long-term effectiveness and ROI for our clients as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Blimey, uh, I'll buy two, please. Um, okay. But this is, uh, this is a crowded marketplace. These are, uh, is there anything else that, uh, that makes this product stand apart from, from the competitors?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first thing to point out is the difference between weight management programs and weight loss programs. So weight management is designed for, like I said earlier, long-term behavior change and weight loss programs are not necessarily designed for that. And often employ sort of unsustainable behaviors like Oh, meal delivery services or point counting, which can certainly help some people at a certain time, but we, we really do focus on the long-term effectiveness. And, um, and it's true that the market is saturated with, with unvalidated weight loss solutions that don't offer sort of the same benefit or the same long-term benefits as VP transformed for weight management does. And, um, you know, so participants in a weight loss program don't necessarily always learn how to build long lasting lifestyle habits that promote health and weight management for the longterm. And so then the payers, you know, the health plans, you know, our clients, I, the employers don't see a restaurant on their investment with solutions like these, because it results really don't last. So, um, oftentimes they're not based on sound evidence and, um, definitely not decades of research like BP transform is, um, and in terms of how, but there are other, you know, digital therapeutics in the marketplace for weight management, right. And how is VP for weight management different than other digital weight management solutions? Um, so first and foremost, our top priority is to serve our client base by delivering effective and engaging digital health solutions. And we're really focused on driving improved health outcomes for members and reducing healthcare costs overall for the health plans and the employers. Um, and so, you know, we think that our clients and members get more for their investment with BP transform than other similar products, because, um, there's a few reasons. So one, um, our members enjoy, uh, more one-on-one health coaching time, um, than our competitors. So we really do have a unique coaching model, um, and it's unique to the industry. So, um, you know, we're not sort of trying to replace our, our coaches with AI or robotic sort of interactions that might feel inauthentic to the user, especially if it's users that are really right for behavior change. Um, the other thing that makes us different are our outcomes. So we're consistently, you know, earning industry's best weight loss and engagement outcomes, and we're really proud of that. Um, and I think another important aspect that our, our users and the administrators really benefit from is this connected experience, right? So, um, a lot of digital therapeutic digital therapeutic platforms are point solutions that lack this integration with a broader health management platform and really sort of making the problem of this disconnected healthcare experience, even worse. And so, um, our members and users really benefit from that sort of, um, that platform that, um, is, is connected and it provides sort of greater opportunities for, for engagement across the various solutions. And, um, I think that, you know, we, we make it easy for our clients to invest in prevention. We offer, um, you know, attractive payment models, like paying for performance and billing as a medical claims. Um, and so, you know, the icing on the cake for, for our clients is that we also are more, more affordable than our competitors. So if you're interested in learning more, definitely get in touch with us that, um, well, Virgin coast.com.

Speaker 1:

Okay, perfect. Thank you. Uh, now we are coming towards the end of this interview. We're ready. Um, but I do want to hear from everybody one, one last time, but I've got one more question for you Misa. So in my, in my usual style, I'm going to mix things up here and I would ask you to talk a little bit about demographics with me. I talk about Johnny farmers and cities liquors, and I want you to do it in under 30 seconds. Okay. So, uh, what's considered a high income country problem being overweight and obesity. And now on the rise in low and middle income countries, particularly in urban settings, how do environmental factors impact the prevalence of obesity in 60 or less go?

Speaker 3:

David talks about this a little bit earlier, but many factors really do influence body weight. Um, genes certainly play a small role, although it's not, you know, destiny, right. Um, other factors like poor diet, um, you know, too little physical activity sleep and especially our built environment. So how accessible, healthy food are and, um, how accessible are safe places to enjoy physical activity are in your neighborhood. Um, and it's not just a problem in rich countries, right? There's relentless marketing of unhealthy foods and sugary drinks in developing countries as well. And in most cases, the healthy option is the more expensive and harder to, to reach option. Um, so while VP transform won't fall for these sort of large global policy issues, um, we, we do, um, offer it it's multi-faceted approach, but that gives individuals the skills to make healthier choices.

Speaker 1:

Okay. I reckon that was about 55 seconds. Nice work, nice work. Um, okay, so now we are approaching the end. So before we wrap up, I'd love for each of you just to leave some final thoughts. So in around about a minute or so from each of you, perhaps you can leave a final thought with the audience on, on health equity and managing weight, the most important thing that you want to, you want to drill home to the audience. And as part of that, I invite you as well to please tell listeners more about how they can connect with you and learn about all the awesome things you're doing. Uh, David, I'd love for you to have that.

Speaker 3:

Thanks very much, bill. And once again, pleasure to join with you Dexter and Misa. So thank you for having me. I would argue there's a twofold opportunity here. First again, to reinvoke the blue zones where lifestyle is universal medicine. Culture is the spoon that helps it go down. This shouldn't be so hard for each of us individually. We ought to have cultural support. So we all need to be good citizens. Think about how we vote, vote in support of a safe food supply vote in support of health, promoting policies vote in support of the world. We want to live in. We want our children to live in. We want our grandchildren to live in. So that's all crucial. We really all need to be participants in a revolution for a healthy environment that makes weight management and, and these desirable health outcomes, the norm, not the exception, but for the time that it remains something of an exception, the work that that we're all doing, and it's been described on this podcast, it is directly relevant. My own contributions. I are far ranging doing all I can to try and make a difference. So I would commend to listeners at my latest book with Mark. Bittman how to eat. We are working at my company diet ID to make diet the vital sign. It deserves to be. We have innovative, um, technology that can capture full details of diet and under 60 seconds and diet change without food logging, without reliance on recollection, the American heart association recently called for dietary assessment, like a vital sign in every clinical encounter. We have the tool that makes that possible. So learn more@dietid.com. And then finally, bill, I think it's important for people to realize how much global consensus there is about a sensible interpretation of the master scientific evidence. So science sense and global expert consensus all come together to support routine physical activity, a diet of wholesome foods, mostly plants, the avoidance of toxins, like tobacco and of sleep avoidance of stress, strong social interactions, a short and accessible formula that makes lifestyle, the medicine we all deserve access to. And that global consensus is represented at the nonprofit I founded while I was president of the American college of lifestyle medicine called the true health initiative. People can learn more about that@truehealthinitiative.org. Once again, thank you so much for having me today and thank you. And I, as an individual could probably use lots of your help. I may we'll be in touch, but what about yourself? Any final thoughts and how can our listeners connect with you

Speaker 2:

Again, thank you for the opportunity. I would say two things. One of the, you know, speaking about health equity, one of the things that, um, we haven't done a really great job on, and that is making, uh, good food, uh, accessible as well as affordable. Uh, one of the things that food smart does is that we actually have a program called food secure, and it's really getting at, uh, food insecurity and there are many aspects of it and encourage anyone that's interested in learning more to contact me or, or a food smart. Uh, but it, it really has, uh, uh, features that allow individuals to find food, uh, at a discount through that affordable. It also allows, uh, uh, excepts, uh, snap benefits, uh, online for grocery shopping. It allows people to compare baskets of food, uh, among different retailers, uh, which is very unique. And so it really starts to get it, this idea of food affordability. And so it's one of the things that we've been working on and are very proud of. Um, I would also say that, um, if you have one of these, uh, lifestyle conditions and, and most of these chronic conditions such as type two diabetes, heart disease, um, uh, you know, even, even certain cancers, uh, are really driven by lifestyle. And if you happen to be one of those individuals that have one of these chronic conditions, I will also, you seek out, uh, physicians that are trained in lifestyle medicine, both David and I, as we mentioned, are board certified in lifestyle medicine. And it's a growing field of growing specialty. Uh, we have over 5,000 members now to the American college of lifestyle medicine. So it's becoming easier to find physicians that really get this and understand this. And so I would also recommend that people look up that organization and that's, uh, lifestyle medicine.org to learn more about that as well. So again, thank you for having me. This was a wonderful conversation. I wish we had, you know, three times as much time, if not more, uh, because there's certainly a lot of things we could talk about, but thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. And just finally Misa, uh, any final thoughts from you and again, how can our listeners learn?

Speaker 2:

Sure. Well, I think just in closing, um, it's really clear that there's this, um, interconnection between lifestyle behaviors, chronic conditions and preventing poor COVID outcomes. Um, and we know that obesity is a leading risk factor for severe COVID infection, um, and increased chances of mortality. And I think that at Virgin Cola, you know, we've been saying for a long time lifestyle is medicine. And what we're, what we've learned through this pandemic is that this is true, not just for health promotion. Um, it's not true just for keeping healthy people healthy, but lifestyle is medicine for our at-risk population too. And it's remedial for both condition prevention and condition management. Um, so while investing in prevention, um, in yourself or in your, in your, the populations that you serve, um, you know, we think has always been important in something that we've, you know, prioritize as a company. Um, I think it's even more clear now that we are in the middle of this, um, infectious pandemic that we're all coping with. And, um, so I think just tying those, tying those things in together, um, is sort of a closing thought that I had after listening to, um, David Dexter, um, you know, your, your insight on what's going on in the world and, you know, sort of what we need in order to meaningfully address the overweight and obesity crisis that we have on our hands. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to, um, to, uh, to work with, with all three of you today. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

This has been fantastic, uh, listeners, of course, this is an audio podcast. One of the reasons why that's a great idea today is ironically, um, I'm a bit infectious. I've got a cold today, so you definitely wouldn't want to see me in person. However, I would love to get David and Dexter and Misa back on, and we could do some sort of a webinar. Um, guys, I also, the co-founder of a, an event series for HR folk called innovate work, which we've been doing since 2017. We do that all around the world. So I'd definitely love to get you all on the speakers. Uh, we can talk about that offline. Um, but that just leaves me to say to each of you, thank you so much for joining me on this special episode of the HR chat show.

Speaker 4:

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