18 Reasons is poised to triple our impact and expand medically prescribed food and cooking education in 2024 — but we need your help.
We are at a crossroads in healthcare. Chronic disease is skyrocketing despite medications. Heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity are rising everywhere, adding billions in cost and devastating lives. Encouragingly, the medical community is responding with a new tactic: prescribing food and nutrition as courses of treatment.
As a food security organization, 18 Reasons has taught over 3,000 participants this year to put healthy food on the table while staying within their budgets. Food as Medicine (FAM) started as a diabetes nutrition and medical intervention series. Doctors prescribe our cooking classes to give patients the knowledge, skills, and confidence to manage their chronic condition using nutritious food.
New FAM programs include:
• Pediatric Obesity - launched fall 2023 to improve health outcomes in children
• Gestational Diabetes - launching spring 2024 as part of Nourishing Pregnancy
We need to raise $250,000 to make these programs possible in 2024. Will you help us?
Our 2023 Needs and Impact
Need:
• 33% of Bay Area children live in food insecure households, with numbers increasing under inflation
Our Impact:
• 3,000 participants received boxes of fresh groceries and and utilized new cooking skills to put healthy food on the table
Need:
• Black women/birthers deliver low birthweight babies at over double the rate of White women (14% vs. 7%)
• 40% of Black birthers report experiencing racism during their prenatal care
Our Impact:
• 87.5% in NP report healthy birth weight (Spring 2023 cohort)
• 100% of participants report very strong support and cultural sensitivity
Need:
• Contemporary medicine is not solving diet-related chronic conditions which continue to rise disproportionally in underserved communities
• Over 28% of children in Bay Area counties are obese, a high risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis, among other lifelong health effects
Our Impact:
• Food as Medicine (FAM) has helped 87% of diabetic participants improve their blood sugar
• Bringing healthy food to patients - and teaching them how to use it - reduces healthcare costs and keeps patients out of the hospital