Donna Williams, founder of Field Goods
The leading causes of death in the developed world are due to unhealthy lifestyles. The shame is that this health crisis is preventable. The question is why these needless deaths are occurring and what can we do about it. These two excerpts from respected publications highlight the issue.
In a February 2nd article published by the World Economic Forum, Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, writes that: “Cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease…together they are the world’s leading cause of preventable death, and represent the defining global health crisis of our generation.
A 2015 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine concluded that chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and cancer could be cut by at least in half if people adopted healthy lifestyles such as regular exercise, diets low in sodium and added sugars, and abstained from using tobacco.
Making the healthy choices easier is part of the solution.
Communities, corporations and countries all must play a role in making the healthy choices easier and creating a culture of health. Adopting healthy diets is as much about individuals making a conscious decision to eat better as it is about removing the barriers. Our intent to eat healthier is often overwhelmed by our beliefs that eating healthy is too expensive, time-consuming, inconvenient, and hard.
I founded Field Goods on the principal of making healthy eating easier. The ideas of “creating a culture of health” and “achieving behavior change” were woven into the product. Field Goods’ service is designed to be inexpensive, convenient, and fun. Education is a critical product feature to help people learn that preparing healthy food can be fast and easy. The service is offered as a subscription to help foster the habit of eating healthy, rather than relying on conscious decisions.
And, finally, Field Goods is a community event. When our drivers drop off our colorful bags filled with produce from small farms to our employer and community pick-up locations, the organizations are making a powerful statement about the importance of a healthy diet to all their employees and constituents.
Over time we have learned that Field Goods does change behavior and create a culture of wellness. We hope that our model inspires organizations and individuals to look at the issues of changing lifestyle behavior in a holistic way. To learn more, please read the results from the Field Goods Diet Study and the FujiFilm Case Study by going to this page.