Labeling Foods as “Healthy”

Dr. Akua Woolbright, PhD, National Nutrition Program Director at Whole Cities Foundation, a nonprofit of Whole Foods, discusses the recent controversy surrounding the Food and Drug Administration testing designs of a label that food manufacturers could voluntarily put on the front of packages indicating that a product is healthy and what this will mean for consumers, especially in underserved communities. 

Dr. Akua Woolbright, Ph.D., is an authoritative expert on nutrition with a passion for helping individuals and communities achieve healthier lives.

Dr. Woolbright joined the Whole Foods Market corporate team in Austin, Texas, in 2009, where she helped create and implement the organization’s national healthy eating program. She moved to Michigan in 2012 to help lead the company’s community engagement efforts prior to the store opening in Midtown Detroit. Whole Foods Market formalized the “Community First” principles and best practices born out of the Detroit advance team’s groundbreaking work by creating the Whole Cities Foundation. The Whole Cities Foundation mission is to increase access to fresh, healthy foods and quality nutrition education.

In 2014, Dr. Woolbright became a founding member and Nutrition Program Director of Whole Cities Foundation. In addition to teaching weekly classes in Newark, New Jersey, and the Englewood community in Chicago, she runs the foundation’s Let’s Talk Food Nutrition and Culinary Education Center in Midtown Detroit, where hundreds of students attend healthy eating lectures, cooking demonstrations, and support groups each week.

Prior to joining Whole Foods Market, Dr. Akua Woolbright lived in Washington, D.C., where she received her PhD in nutritional science from Howard University and worked as a public health nutritionist in the areas of breastfeeding promotion, cancer prevention and survival, HIV/AIDS treatment, weight loss, asthma, and international childhood malnutrition.