Most replayed moment: Is Our Food System Making Us Sick? | Prof Brian Elbel & Prof Tim Spector

Jonathan Wolf· Host0:00

[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to ZOE Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. On this podcast, we often talk about things that you can do to improve your diet. However, you're not the only person who has an impact on your health. The truth is that our food system, from government policy to supermarket placement, has a profound influence on what we eat, how we eat, and ultimately, how healthy we all are. So what steps can we take to improve not just our own health, but the health of society as a whole? Today, I'm joined by Professor Brian Elbel and Professor Tim Spector to explore the forces shaping our food system and the changes that could benefit our collective wellbeing. [upbeat music] So maybe we can just start off by explaining, like, what is population health, and how does it impact the individual?

Brian Elbel· Guest0:51

I think population health is a couple things. I think it is really looking at the health of populations. By that, we mean we're averaging over a bunch of different people, right? So, you know, while you may be looking at one or two people in certain smaller studies, we're averaging over a whole big group of people. So that means a couple different things. It means when we're looking at solutions, we may be looking for a 3% to 5% sort of change that could be quite meaningful at a population level, that maybe wouldn't be what you're looking for if you're looking at sort of individual studies. So I think that's one big kind of key distinction and difference. I think another is the type of data that we're using, right? To look at population health stuff, we need a lot of data on a lot of people, and that's something that's quite different from smaller studies where you're down