Healthy Future US Blog

During the main panel discussion at highly influential Modern Healthcare magazine’s Leadership Symposium recently, prominent industry CEOs shared their frustrations on the need for change in health care but the lack of progress.  Of all the comments made in a poll of attendees, Modern Healthcare highlighted one by Erin Hammond, a senior value-based programs professional at Humana [ emphasis added by me]:  “Medicare Advantage and Medicare should start for high-risk communities the first day of preschool .  That way the government and healthcare orgs have an entire lifetime to shape healthy habits that will impact the high cost of the elderly population.  Between that and a sugar tax and increasing the quality of food we make available to our population...we would not only see the quality and healthy days of our citizens enhance as they get older, but much lower medical costs .”   Even if you don’t believe in a single cradle-to-grave health plan for all or tax...

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...

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...

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 a...

Dutch citizens recently won what could be a game-changing legal verdict against the Shell Oil Company.  Shell is being held accountable for its role in a range of problems created by global climate change.   Going from the gas pump into the convenience store:  are those making & selling unhealthy food & beverages liable for the growing pandemic of diabetes & heart disease--caused to a major extent by unhealthy nutrition?   Given the past success of tobacco, vaping and opioid litigation in the USA, it seems that companies which profit from popular products that harm people may not get a free ride forever.   Of course, many argue that individual consumers are choosing to eat & drink unhealthy stuff.  If they want to do that, let them--and don’t blame the companies who supply them.  The problem is: those individuals often do not have the money to pay for their lifelong chronic diseases.  So those with healthy lifestyles...

We don’t usually think of Germans as being litigious--but desperate situations breed desperate measures.  The youth of Germany just won a major legal victory , in which they sued the government, dominated by older Germans such as Chancellor Merkel, over climate issues.  Younger Germans allege that those in power are not doing enough to prevent a future climate catastrophe, which would harm today’s youth much more than today’s elderly--who will be long dead by the time the full force of climate change hits Germany. Which makes me wonder: what if GenZ-ers and Millennials sued our ruling-class Boomers over their gross neglect of youth health?   Our older generations have allowed younger generations to develop epidemic levels of chronic disease. Across the country, our “leaders” wantonly permitted schools to slash physical & health education & recess.  This has been a major factor in today’s pervasive child inactivity, obesity & unfitness--inevitably lea...

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 dec...