Throughout my career as a pediatrician, a public health professional, a television health journalist, and now as the head of a national health philanthropy, I have always continued to see patients in community clinics.
Many of my patients have been children of low-income families, working hard to stay as healthy as possible despite the many barriers they face. Many struggle with obesity. I got to know these families over the years, and I’ve realized that obesity and other health concerns are symptoms of larger, more systemic problems regarding health and equity in our society. Poverty. Unstable and unsafe housing. Schools that don’t meet children’s needs. Neighborhoods that seldom offer families opportunities to thrive. These are all conditions that influence health.
Many of these community conditions are a result of discriminatory policies and systems that have been in place for decades. And they continue to contribute to the significant disparities in obesity rates by race, by income, and by geography. However, we have the power to change these outcomes and make our nation a more equitable society. The more we understand the barriers to good health, the more we can do to address them.
