Blurry Lines: When Does Nutrition Become Medicine?

Poor diet and food environments are primary drivers of obesity, chronic disease, and escalating health care costs across the life course — yet integrated solutions that function at scale remain elusive. Advances in lifestyle medicine have expanded options for behavioral change and chronic disease prevention, and pharmacological agents such as incretin mimetics have demonstrated striking efficacy for obesity and cardiometabolic disease management. However, access to both dietary and pharmaceutical interventions remain uneven. Bridging this gap requires reimagining the purpose of the food system — one that treats health promotion as a core function rather than an incidental outcome. Programming will run until 2:30 p.m. to be followed by a short reception.