Mayor Adams’ office is joining forces with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine to provide free training on better eating and healthier lifestyles to every health care practitioner in the city.
The $44 million partnership will fund up to 200,000 doctors, nurses and other health workers on how to use “lifestyle medicine” in their practices.
Lifestyle medicine focuses on boosting physical and mental health through nutrition, stress management and other areas, according to Stanford University. Four out of five diagnoses of type-2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke are preventable through lifestyle “interventions,” it noted.
Along with the city’s publicly run hospital system, the new program will work with 19 major health care institutions, from BronxCare Health System to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Northwell Health.
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On the campaign trail and since taking office last year, Adams has frequently talked about the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle.
“A plant-based diet restored my eyesight, put my Type 2 diabetes into remission, and helped saved my life,” Adams said in a Monday statement.
Thetraining entails five and a half hours of online coursework. Topics include an introduction to the speciality and “Food as Medicine.”
“Once again, we’re setting the standard for the rest of the nation, giving practitioners new tools to combat chronic disease and health disparities and investing in a healthier city for generations to come,” Adams said.
His office noted chronic health conditions are rampant across the U.S., where six in 10 adults have at least one chronic ailment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Treating the root cause of chronic disease in this country, and especially lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities, will positively change the trajectory of both quality of life and health costs,” stated Cate Collings, former president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, which is based in St. Louis.
Health initiatives like serving vegan meals at city schools on Fridays have become a hallmark of the Adams administration.
After frequently boasting of his vegan bona fides on the mayoral campaign trail, he admitted in February that he “occasionally” eats fish.
“Let me be clear: Changing to a plant-based diet saved my life, and I aspire to be plant-based 100% of the time. I want to be a role model for people who are following or aspire to follow a plant-based diet, but, as I said, I am perfectly imperfect, and have occasionally eaten fish,” he said in a statement at the time.
