Skip to main content

America the Beautiful...The Sequel

The rarely sung second verse of America The Beautiful contains these words:


       America!  America!

       God mend thine every flaw,

       Confirm thy soul in self-control,

       Thy liberty in law!


At a time when criticisms of US history are condemned as un-American, it’s worth listening to this.  


As we noted in a previous blog post, the Founding Fathers expected a number of flaws in our country--and created a constitutional process to address them. 


Often, this process requires prolonged citizen pressure to get political leaders to address a major neglected issue, such as gender inequality, voting issues or racism...or a multidecade child health epidemic and a crushingly expensive health system--both fueled by government mismanagement.  


Unfortunately, our advocacy experience so far reinforces this. 


Why are political leaders so resistant to change?  Sure, they've got a lot on their plate. But how about prioritizing the big issues that matter deeply to the public?


Powerful special interests gain from the status quo, as reflected in their lobbying and campaign donations.  After first ignoring the mounting pressure, they start to give lip service to change--while avoiding actually doing anything significant about it.  Then when it looks like you are making progress, they start to fight back--ideally for them, behind the scenes out of public view; or with deceptive public messaging; because what they are doing is not in the public interest.


As Healthy Future US makes progress, we will need to keep raising our game--because those benefiting from the current sorry state of affairs in health have a lot to lose, and will keep fighting harder.  


Thankfully, in America we have the freedom to work to help “mend our flaws”.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it a “Miracle Drug”?...if it Costs a Fortune and Creates Lifelong Dependency...&...Saggy Faces!?

[It’s been a while since our last blog post.  A lot has happened since– including some “miracles” ! So we’re going to do two posts in a row…] Normally we should all be happy about miracle drugs... shouldn't we ? Yes, there is lots of upside from taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), tirzepatide (Montjaro)--and upcoming new, even-more-miraculous drugs TBD:  losing huge amounts of weight quickly, a much lower risk of diabetes–and probably less heart disease and other chronic conditions as well.  But what if the “miracle” requires:   $200-300/week, with a lifetime cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars…  a drug that you can never quit…because if you stop taking it, you gain back all the weight it helped you lose–not to mention the chronic diseases which the drugs kept at bay… and it leaves your face (and the rest of your skin?) sagging …    (plus, it’s so new at such high dosages– who knows what happens after years of use…? ) No doubt, in spit...
4 comments
Read more

Both/And: Personal & School & Social Responsibility for Health

Many people are promoting a false dichotomy for who/what to “blame” for decades of pervasive inactivity & unhealthy nutrition--the key preventable factors which have led to the majority of adults developing chronic disease. Some believe that people with preventable chronic diseases made a series of unhealthy choices for decades, for which they need to accept personal responsibility for the consequences. On the other side, a growing number of policymakers focus on the “social determinants of health.”  In other words, there are many things beyond your control, which impact what you eat & drink and how active you are.  This includes factors such as your family, neighborhood, school, employer, transportation, public safety, housing, community layout, etc. etc.  It’s those external social factors which determine your health destiny.   Actually, the personal and social are inextricably connected--not opposite ends of the spectrum.  Let’s consider the role...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Mirage of Child Health Improvement in Arizona

Fasten your statistical seatbelts & prepare for a "wonky" longer-than-normal post: New National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) data claim an improvement in child obesity in Arizona over the last five years--to the extent that AZ supposedly now has the 2nd lowest child obesity for 10-17 year olds in the USA !?  Per the NSCH-based rankings, this implies that Arizona has less child obesity & much better trends than even perennial health leaders Colorado or Utah--in spite of those states having much less poverty & much lower adult obesity than Arizona.  Few states except perhaps North Dakota(!?) & Nebraska(!?) show as much of a decline over the last five years (2016-2020) among children, according to these NSCH data. These parent-self-reported statistics contradict the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data , which are self-reported by high school students themselves--and which do not show an improvement in teen obesity in Arizona (or in Nebraska or North D...
Post a Comment
Read more