I’m Gracie Kennedy and I am a member of the YAHL leadership team for the 2022-2023 school year. I am going to be a sophomore in High School. I have been a part of YAHL, which stands for Youth Action for Health Leadership, for one year and just recently joined the leadership team. I joined YAHL because I was intrigued by the thought of learning how to be a better leader in my school and community. Being a member of YAHL has given me more confidence in myself and what I have to say. YAHL is an ambitious program dealing with two campaigns, which are Elevate Student Health and Counteract Tobacco. Elevate deals with improving health policies and bringing healthier food options into places like school systems. We also strive to promote increased productivity. Typically, people need at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day which is something else we at YAHL stand for.   

Elevate is a strong campaign striving for health in our youth and communities. I’m an athlete, so I get to see first-hand how vital nutrition and physical activity is for our youth. It’s not just important for athletes but for all teens and adults to have physical activity and nutritious foods. It’s important to me because eating healthy and being active makes me feel healthier and better in general. Diabetes runs in my family, so I know now how important it is to eat healthy and have nutritious foods. My school doesn’t have very nutritious food options, clean drinking water or physical activity unless you are an athlete, which is why I am a part of YAHL and want to make a difference. Having strong policies in place makes it less easy for people to access those unhealthy foods. With strong policies in place for increased productivity becomes more evident to people and they may hopefully realize their need for it. In Elevate we try to improve the policies with testing drinking water and have healthy options to eat, especially in schools. If these policies were passed it would make our schools a healthier place to be and helping our future generations to be healthier. By promoting health to our future and current generations our world can become a better and healthier place to live. Also saving our youth and children from things like diabetes, obesity or any other sicknesses that come out of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Elevate is an impactful campaign because of how it cares about our youth and future generations. It creates emotion because of the compassion behind it. If we all work together we can actually make a difference in our school, our community, our families and our society. This is why people should care, because of how we can change the lives of people who may not know that there is a better and healthier way to live. Working with YAHL has taught me that policy is important to help people realize the facts about having a healthy lifestyle.

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By YAHL Leadership Team and Sperry High School Member Gracie Kennedy