“more than 40 percent of school-aged children and adolescents have at least one chronic health condition”
Parents reported around 41 percent of children under 18 had “current or lifelong health conditions” when asked about 25 health conditions.
For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024. The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.
But our food problem goes well beyond obesity: Pesticides are proven risk factors for neurodevelopmental outcomes in kids, causing maladies like ADHD. If the next president prioritizes the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify which exposures are contributing to the spike in chronic disease in children, we will finally find out and end what is slowly destroying our children.
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