Preventing and Treating Diet-Related Disease

The Veteran Health Administration is the largest integrated health system in the nation, serving more than 9 million Veterans annually. More than 260,000 Veterans live in the Greater Los Angeles VA Health Systems’ catchment area, including the nation’s largest population of Veterans experiencing housing insecurity. Rising rates of diet-related disease are a crisis for Veterans and national security:

• 87% of Veterans have hypertension

• 78% of Veterans are overweight or obese

• 1 in 4 Veterans have diabetes

• 24% of Veterans are food-insecure

• 4x higher risk of suicidal ideation among food-insecure Veterans

• 1 in 3 American youth are unable to serve in the military due to overweight/obesity

Failure to re-imagine how we integrate our food and health systems is leading to the suffering and premature deaths of millions of Americans including our nation’s Veterans.  Americans spend an estimated $1.1 trillion on food, while spending $1 trillion more on healthcare costs and lost productivity from diet-related disease annually.

The Veteran’s Garden is located on a 15-acre plot of land on the northeastern part of the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center campus, and once restored, will be the nation’s largest farm integrated into a health system.

We invite you to join us in planting the seeds of an integrated food and health system in Los Angeles that can support the health of Veterans and civilians across the nation.