Food for Thought 2020: The
science and politics of nutrition
The food/agriculture/health nexus is a focus area within our 2030 Sustainability Ambition of “Building societal resilience” and a research priority of Swiss Re Institute. Nutrition has a significant impact on chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity, yet there is great controversy about what actually constitutes a healthy diet.
To help resolve such disagreements and drive good science and research in the nutrition space, in 2018 Swiss Re Institute started a partnership with The BMJ, a renowned UK-based medical journal. Through the partnership we sponsored a series of landmark articles by leading nutrition researchers and held an initial Food for Thought conference in Zurich.
Building on the success of this first cooperation, Swiss Re Institute and The BMJ partnered again in 2020, repeating the format of articles and conference. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event had to be transformed into a fully virtual event. On 29 and 30 June, some of the most influential voices in the area of nutrition and health gathered online to discuss the biggest challenges in the field, review progress since 2018 and set the agenda for future research and policymaking.
Sessions focused on: shifting from treatment of diabetes to reversal, guidelines of salt consumption, the impact of nutrition on mental wellbeing, promoting health in the wake of COVID-19, and improving nutritional research and conflicts of interest.