Help create a sustainable wellness policy for our schools, communities

Talk about it

We are in the midst of a health care crisis of our own making. For the first time in our history we are creating generations that will have lower life expectancies than we do. There is no debate about the problem. All the doctors and medicine, all the hospitals and technology can’t change the fact that today’s kids are on track to suffer more chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart related illnesses than previous generations.

The culture has shifted and we are less active and more dependent on ample supplies of “nutritionally challenged” processed foods. Those are the problems, plain and simple. And even though childhood obesity has tripled since 1969, it’s not an obesity epidemic; it’s the twin epidemics of physical inactivity and poor nutrition.

The Statewide Health Improvement Program at its core is about creating policy and making environmental changes in our schools and communities that improve overall health and wellness

Several weeks ago the Lake Superior District school board authorized the formation of a school wellness coalition that will create the specific goals and outcomes, to create the simple and profound solutions needed for healthier students, schools and communities.

We need help from folks all across Lake County in order to make this happen.

Join us Tuesday, March 12, 3:45 p.m. in the computer lab/media center at Two Harbors High School to kickstart the process. For folks in the Silver Bay end of the district, please head to the IT lab at Kelley High School, Room 108, and join via Skype. We need you and your healthy living ideas to develop specific wellness policies aimed at establishing healthy school nutrition environments, reducing childhood obesity and preventing diet-related chronic diseases.

Simple and profound solutions for health and wellness are within reach.

Tags: opinion