Healthy Future US Blog

OK, so we've been doing a lot of blog-tificating.  But what is it that we are doing to make things better?  And are we really still needed--if we ever were? When I founded what became Healthy Future US, I knew our task was extremely difficult. (As they say: “if it was easy, it would have been done already.”)  But I thought it would be quicker & easier than it has been.  After all, wasn't it increasingly obvious that our health and related costs were devastatingly out of control, with an urgent need to address the primary root causes of inactivity & unhealthy nutrition? As we enter Year 8 of full-time social entrepreneurship & advocacy, it's helpful to review our track record and rethink our future based on lessons learned.  This blog format is not great for lengthy explanations, but here are a few key points: - Start-ups always take longer and cost more than you think--even more so in the social sector, where public-policy timeframes stretch into decades. - The

It seems like every social sector organization is providing "systemic" solutions nowadays. (That's a sure sign that funders are demanding that we address root causes more--not just programs as a temporary band-aid for symptoms of persistent major underlying problems.)   Of course, if everyone really were providing systemic solutions, we wouldn't have any problems anymore.  Instead, many problems are getting worse.  So, what are we missing?  What about truly catastrophic long-running and ever-worsening systemic issues like epidemic teen prediabetes & social-emotional unwellness, adult diabetes & overwhelming stress, and profound income & racial health disparities? The social determinants of health (SDOH) framework shows us how complex such issues are.  But it's hard enough to reform one systemic cause of inactivity and unhealthy nutrition and disabling trauma--much less trying to tackle a dozen at once.   This is where we can bring in a framework from t