The U.S. has a huge problem with obesity, yet only one in eight visits with a doctor involves healthy diet counseling. A new initiative seeks to change that.

“We are proposing to do two things at the same time,” says Lisel Loy of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The first thing is to improve the way we train not just doctors but all health professionals to address issues of nutrition and physical activity. And second is to change the way we pay for that kind of care.”

Such changes are critical, Loy says, and it’s important that the changes happen at the same time.

“If you have physicians trained to do this, but that kind of care is not covered, it’s unlikely doctors and others will have the incentive to provide that kind of care,” she notes.

This conversation is part of a series called The Future of Food Policy. The conversations were conducted at Duke University as a part of the development of a new initiative, the World Food Policy Center.

• Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
• Artist: www.incompetech.com/