Healthy Future US Blog

Compare the number of preventable deaths each year from chronic disease caused by unhealthy nutrition & inactivity to the fraction of that mortality from COVID-19.   One of the reasons we have invested so much attention & money on COVID-19, in contrast with the more perennially dangerous unhealthy nutrition & inactivity, is that everyone including those with power are at-risk of getting infected by the virus.   Since inactivity & unhealthy nutrition affect primarily non-white & lower-income folks with no power, they all get ignored.  As soon as COVID-19 vaccines hit, the powers-that-be will start trying to ignore disparities again--though hopefully the pandemic has at least raised consciousness enough to make that willful ignorance more fragile than in the past.

Each July 4 is an opportunity for Americans to remember their many blessings as a country, while also re-committing to improve what needs more work.   The racial justice protests this year are forcing us to confront racial disparities in many areas. Past racial injustice in society & the economy is reflected in major racial health inequities today.  K-12 schools’ focus has been aggressively narrowed in recent decades to achievement in reading, writing & math test scores.  To maximize school test prep time, the vast majority of schools, including Title 1 schools with their higher black & brown student populations, decimated physical & health & arts education & recess. We gained little in improved education attainment, but we did worsen health dramatically.   Now the pandemic has proven yet again, that we pay a very high price when we ignore our underlying health.  The main causes of chronic disease now--inactivity & unhealthy nutrition--can to a large

My take so far on school reopenings based on very preliminary data:  - The countries with the best school reopening track records have typically had quite restricted formats such as very small, highly distanced class sizes  plus low country COVID-19 case levels per capita--many less infections per person than in the USA.  So we need to realize that we can't just copy what they did. - The biggest risk seems to be to teachers & staff.  Kids are less vulnerable & less infectious.  We need to consider all of them, and parents, too! - If we can flatten the state curve & have hospital capacity, it seems worth letting schools without local spikes reopen very carefully physically--including with recess!  - Then track closely & share immediately what is happening & learn from each other. - Let's get real:  Given the shortcomings of our hastily improvised hybrid teaching models, by this time next year, we could easily have lost on average 1/2 year or more