The Infernal Presence of Obesity September 17, 2024 by Taylor Walsh An Obesity – Mental Duress (dis)Connection? While the nation has been exerting its resources and talents to push back against the intransigent presence of mental duress that remains from COVID, particularly for young people, the preceding national ill-health epidemic – obesity – has remained entrenched. The CDC reminds us of this in its recently released report: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services; 2023 which illustrates the presence of obesity in color-coded maps, beginning with the comprehensive national view (below): The national view is then broken out into variations related to specific populations: Non-Hispanic Asian adults: Non-Hispanic White adults Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native adults Hispanic adults Non-Hispanic Black adults The accompanying document, “What Can Be Done” outlines recommended activities for federal agencies, states and local organizations, and “everyone.” As is far too often the usual case, schools remain barely visible within a broad assortment of community activities that “can be done;” which primarily emphasize the usual solutions of nutritious food and exercise. While this report is a broad overview of the still demoralizing state of obesity in the nation, its guidance does not include addressing the all-permeating presence of mental duress, which is surprising, in particular as a factor that children and adolescents are coping with, and will continue to cope with for years. At the first of the year, CDC’s Division of Adolescent School Health released an important guide for educators: “Promoting Mental Health and Well-Being in Schools: an Action Guide for School and District Leaders” Surprisingly these guidelines make no clear reference to obesity or overweight concerns, which have been cited as elements of adolescent anxiety and stress, with expansive ramification for many post K-12 activities, including recruiting for military service. This disconnect is a primary reason our work is focused strongly on strengthening the whole health of the whole child. This needed connection was the subject of panel discussions last April at the Harkin on Wellness symposium. Inter-professional conversations took place between leaders from school gardens, mindfulness, teaching kitchen and other whole health learning practices, with pediatricians and child mental health policy and research specialists. You can check out the Summary here.
Joining NIH’s NCCIH Coalition for Whole Person Health September 15, 2024 by Taylor Walsh Whole Health for the Whole Child? WholeHealthED is serving on the steering committee of the NCCIH Coalition for Whole Person Health. The Coalition was formed earlier in 2024 after NCCIH (the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health) began organizing a transformational research framework on behalf of NIH around whole person health in early 2021. WholeHealthED has been a member of the initiative’s external stakeholder group since its formation. Our participation in this important initiative is based on our advocacy for much greater research attention to the upstream prevention qualities that are inherent in student participation in whole health learning practices: in the garden, in mindfulness programs, environmental ed, physical activities and in the teaching kitchen. In practice and ideally, these qualities can help prevent the onset of ill-health and some behavioral issues that emerge from the intransigent mental duress and anxieties impacting too many kids in this prolonged post-COVID era. Sustained time engaged in Whole Health Learning practices may also help establish favorable mindsets and attitudes kids can take with them on leaving high school which empower them to sustain their own good health and wellbeing. Establishment of the Coalition will create a membership base of organizations in healthcare research and program development that are focused on the emerging field of whole health and whole person health. This will include non-profits in academic and research centers currently engaged in whole person health activities and in integrative, functional, and lifestyle medicine, or who are investing in developing a capacity in the field. Other members of the steering committee include leaders from: Institute for Functional Medicine Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health American College of Lifestyle Medicine American Holistic Nurses Association Academy for Integrative Health and Medicine Cornerstone Collaboration Institute for Functional Medicine Integrative Health Policy Consortium Teaching Kitchen Collaborative at Harvard On Nov. 1, NCCIH will host a first in-person, members-only conference at the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD. For more information, including on applying for membership, see the NCCIH page: NCCIH Coalition for Whole Person Health.
Surgeon General Murthy at 2024 Wellness in Schools Symposium September 15, 2024 by Taylor Walsh This year’s “Harkin on Wellness” symposium, focused on ensuring that schools employ all proven and effective measures to counter the mental health crisis. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy MD We co-produced this annual 2024 Harkin Institute convening, which was led off by an inspiration keynote by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy MD, who reaffirmed his focus on child and adolescent health. Later in the day, Kathleen Ethier PhD, director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent School Health presented on her work supporting mental health options for schools. The day’s discussion brought together an interdisciplinary group of panelists whose diverse perspectives considered the question of what schools can do to support kids’ wellbeing and to offset metal duress, anxiety and stress. Blending insights from the garden to mental health policy and research, a unique day. From left: Laura Bakosh, Inner Explorer; Nancy Easton, Wellness in the Schools; Priya Cook, Children & Nature Network; Gerta Bardoshi, Scanlan Center for School Mental Health at Iowa; Kaitlyn Scheuerman, Waukee Iowa schools garden coordinator; and Bengu Erguner-Tekinalp, Drake University. And as with each symposium, the Harkin team invited 12 innovative schools and districts from around the country to receive special recognition for their work. Read the full summary report here.
“Harkin on Wellness” Agenda and Speakers Announced March 14, 2024 by Taylor Walsh April 3, 2024 Parents Hall, Olmsted Center at Drake University The Harkin Institute has announced the agenda and speakers for the April 3, 2024 “Harkin on Wellness” symposium, for which WholeHealthED has played a lead role in developing content and the core theme of the symposium, “Wellbeing in Schools” (the Agenda is below). Registration and the link to the YouTube live-stream on April 3 are available here. This unique and compelling gathering brings together educators, public health policy leaders, and healthcare professionals devoted to children’s wellbeing to consider the full range of proven and available measures that schools might deploy now during this period of persistent mental duress, including potential new kinds of collaboration. National public health policy and program leadership The preventive and health promoting outcomes of whole health learning activities at school The in-school engagement that healthcare and mental health organizations have begun to address mental duress Leading school-based practitioners — gardens, teaching kitchens, mindfulness, PE, and environmental ed — whose outcomes have shown favorable health and wellbeing qualities The presentations and panel discussions continue the unique cross-cutting conversations during the June 22, 2023 webinar we co-produced with the Harkin Institute, “First Line of Defense: Confronting the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis through Interdisciplinary Whole Child Actions.” (See our summary, with links to videos, here.) As part of its annual program, the “Harkin on Wellness” team has selected 12 schools and districts from around the country, whose work highlights the positive whole child outcomes students (and faculty) have experienced through participation in these usually “nice-to-have” school activities. Celebrating these on-the-school ground programs is the centerpiece of the symposium. The Agenda as of March 14. 2024:
WholeHealthED, Harkin Institute to highlight “Wellbeing in Schools” December 26, 2023 by Taylor Walsh WholeHealthED has been invited to co-develop the program for Harkin Institute’s 2024 “Harkin on Wellness” symposium, to be held live next Spring at Drake University in Des Moines. Sen. Tom Harkin The symposium will follow up last June’s successfully co-produced virtual symposium “First Line of Defense: Confronting the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis Through Interdisciplinary Whole Child Actions in K-12.” This was a first time for leading national practitioners and specialists and educators in whole health learning practices to brief leaders in pediatric, child and mental health and school health organizations on the growing benefits of gardens and mindfulness in K-12, including offsetting the mental duress plaguing adolescents today. A summary is here. The focus of the 2024 Symposium — Wellbeing in Schools — builds on the “Harkin on Wellness” symposium’s historic focus on critical community food issues – access, quality, nutrition, and policy. The 2024 event focuses on activities like the school garden and teaching kitchen that engage kids directly in the food ecosystem from the ground up, and extends that learning experience to time in nature, sustainability, mindful practices, and physical activities that are part of the Whole Health Learning framework. As in previous years, the 2024 HOW will highlight 10 projects from around the country, through nominations from educators and specialists experienced in the fields. These invited leaders will travel to Des Moines to meet with attendees and describe their experiences in focused breakouts. The symposium also includes two keynote speakers and two discussion panels that will explore the primary themes: Roles pediatric and healthcare organizations can play, and are playing in schools, to mitigate mental duress and reinforce prevention and health promoting activities The extensive availability of school-based “non-therapeutic” wellbeing-supporting activities like the garden and teaching kitchen The full agenda and speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. Please signup for our email list below and check Facebook and LinkedIn for updates.
WholeHealthED and Kennedy Forum’s Alignment for Progress December 18, 2023 by Taylor Walsh As part of an extraordinary year-long national effort to address the discouraging state of the nation’s mental health the Kennedy Forum has initiated several major collaborations, notably the Alignment for Progress (AFP), a national strategy to move policy to support serious improvement in mental health and substance use programs. AFP numbers many of the nation’s most important health and mental healthcare and policy champions as partners. Along with others WholeHealthED has signed on as a “Commitment Maker” in line with our focus on strengthening children’s wellbeing and resilience during their school years: WholeHealthED commits to developing school models that embed well-established school-based whole health learning activities – in garden, nutrition, mindfulness, cognition bolstering PE and outdoor learning – whose outcomes have been shown to mitigate the impact of stress, ACEs, negative social determinants, and trauma that underlie the child and adolescent mental health crisis, which we argue should raise Wellbeing to peer status with Math and Language Arts as essential for the resilient, well-rounded education children will need to succeed in the 21st century.” (The most current list of organizations participating on several levels is here at the AFP page.) School-Based Mental Health Council As part of the Alignment for Progress, the Kennedy Forum has also established a School-Based Mental Health Council (SBMHC) to focus on child and adolescent mental health. Significantly for this effort the Forum in early December announced a substantial, multi-year grant from Pivotal Ventures, a philanthropy of Melinda French Gates for support of its expansive mental health advocacy and policy initiatives, which includes “a robust schedule of stakeholder working groups focusing on school-based services.” Youth Mental Health Handbook for the Nation’s Governors Earlier this year the Forum also helped the National Governor’s Association develop and distribute Strengthening Youth Mental Health: A Governor’s Playbook The Playbook was developed with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy who was chair of the NGA during much of 2023, and reflected policy and program elements adopted in New Jersey.