October 31, 2024 by Taylor Walsh Keeping Healthy Kids Healthy: A Research Agenda? NIH’s “NCCIH Coalition on Whole Person Health” meeting Nov. 1 has brought together innovative researchers now applying whole health principles to research and treatments in roles of self-care that we have seen succeed in whole health learning practices in U.S. schoolyards. This first membership meeting of the new NCCIH Coalition marks a kind of coming out for the whole person health research initiative that NCCIH has been leading at NIH since early 2021. WholeHealthED serves on the Coalition steering committee, having been part of the external stakeholder group since the initiative’s inception in early 2021. After beginning member recruitment in mid-summer, nearly 80 institutions, hospital systems, academic medical centers and professional association have joined he coalition (See the full current list here: ) The Coalition will actively support NCCIH’s mission to spread the whole health word within other institutes and research centers at NIH and thus influence research around the US and beyond. NCCIH Executive Director Helene Langevin MD said recently that she has two important areas to develop: Research on whole person health grows and flourishes and leads to an increasingly integrative approach to biomedical research in general Whole person health informs all of health care, with an emphasis on prevention, health restoration and support of a healthy lifestyle WholeHealthED’s participation in this important initiative will continue our advocacy for much greater research attention to the upstream prevention potential and outcomes that children gain from their experience in hands-on, collaborative, student-centered whole health learning practices: in gardens, nature, kitchen learning, mindfulness, and PE programs during their school years. All of which support the formation of healthy lifestyles starting in the earliest years of schooling. Whole health, lifestyle, functional and integrative medicine clinical interventions have been shown to provide important benefits for adult patients. Of much greater long-term importance we believe is the potential of their school-based whole health learning expressions to “keep healthy kids healthy” from PreK through high school. And ideally to develop educated mindsets during kids’ student years that empower and sustain favorable wellness habits and decisions as they grow into adulthood. In practice and ideally whole health learning qualities help mitigate the onset of ill-health, offset behavioral issues and lessen that mental duress that have been compounded during this prolonged post-COVID era. We need much more coherent research that encompasses the full measure of support for student wellbeing that these practices express. This meeting of minds in Bethesda, Maryland at the campus of NIH, can go a long way to elevating the importance of including the Whole Child in the thinking and connections made in the growing Whole Person Health community.