Helen Schifter has been a vocal and passionate advocate of the need to promote healthy living to the masses. It’s not a subject that should merely be limited to older people. In fact, Schifter argues that on the contrary, people deserve to know about the value of healthy living from as young and age as possible. According to Schifter, the obesity epidemic is a perfect (yet unfortunate) illustration of the ways we as the older generation have let our younger colleagues down by not educating them and keeping them informed of the value that exists to leading a healthy lifestyle.
Helen Schifter writes on Thrive Global that the ways to properly go about educating the younger generation of the need and the value to leading a healthy lifestyle has to take place not only within the confines of academic settings and in schools. Instead, it’s something that should indeed be incorporated into the curriculum of many of the schools that our children are attending. But how about extracurricular engagement with students about the pressing need to lead a healthy lifestyle?
That should be equally important; and of course, it should be treated as such. The reality is that at some point in our nation’s development we totally took our eye off the ball when it comes to prioritizing the health of our citizens. It seems quite difficult to understand, especially given the fact that we are blessed to live in a country with an entire government agency and thousands of employees dedicated to seeking to preserve our citizen’s collective help.
But the reality remains. So how can we properly go about changing this dynamic to ensure that our nation’s youth are keenly aware from as young an age as possible about changing their regimens and routines to ensure a healthier lifestyle? The answer lies with adapting to the changes in our culture.
In today’s cultural environment, our youth have their own prominent figures who they respect; and who they are increasingly inclined to listen to. These people are influencers of sorts; and the mediums that they use to communicate their messages with their audiences (including mostly young people) vary, depending on the industry they may represent. But all of the most popular and well-frequented forms of media that they employ consistently, are social media platforms and profiles.
Facebook and Twitter for example are both very popularly used by these influencers in a way to capture the attention of their followers. These influencers will often even be retained and paid momentarily in order to plug a product and promote it , so that companies can take advantage of the vast followings and dedicated and loyal fans these influencers have. So why not use this model to our advantage for this ever-so constructive purpose? What could possibly be a more noble endeavor than ensuring a healthier society filled with people who lead lifestyles that are healthier?
Helen Schifter believes that such an influencer based campaign and movement would have great success, particularly with the youth demographic. The youth demographic, no matter their backgrounds (socially or otherwise), are on these platforms. For this reason, their attention merely has to be leveraged accordingly. If we know based on statistical data that it is on these very social media platforms that young people are spending their time and consuming their own form of news, then let’s create a social impact campaign that reflects their tendencies when it comes to media consumption. Such an influencer campaign that aggressively seeks to communicate these messages via social media platforms – specifically employing the usage of influencers that young people are inclined to listen to, will be a success. But we need to start sooner rather than later. The more time we continue putting this matter off, the worse a position we will be bound to be in, when we do choose to begin our important work. Our youth deserve our attention and our care. Let’s be compassionate toward them. This is the proper way.