Vision, Mission, Goals & Objectives
VISIONMore than any single factor, diet influences our health:
* On a daily level, our diet nourishes us and gives us bodily energy and mental vitality, and
* Our diet creates a level of ongoing systemic health and vitality that affects everything we do.
Most Americans are aware of the general nutritional values of specific foods (“spinach is good for you”), and that a healthy diet impacts health. But most are blissfully unaware/unconcerned that diet is deeply influenced by our lifestyle – a complex mix of behaviors resulting from our individual choices as well as cultural and economic influences – which, in turn, determines our basic degree of systemic health and well-being.
One reason for this lack of awareness is our culture’s notion of health. Americans have traditionally seen health as “ absence of disease”: unless we need to see a doctor, we see ourselves as healthy and in the short-term can go about our lives any way we want (“I can eat fast food . . . it saves time, tastes good, and I feel fine afterwards!”). However, the past three decades have brought increasing acceptance of preventative health, which views the body as a living system requiring ongoing sustenance/care to ensure simultaneous short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term health and well-being.
And now there is also mounting evidence that our bodies don’t feel fine, for example, after consuming fast food, that a fast food diet is less nourishing and even immediately detrimental to the body’s health. As a result, many Americans now give lip service to preventative health (“It makes common sense, but I don’t have time . . .”) because they see conscious, ongoing health maintenance as an option rather than an immediate necessity. This attitude must be changed. There’s abundant evidence that poor diets and unhealthy consumptive lifestyles are seriously eroding Americans’ health and have grave, far-reaching consequences for our individual and national vitality: We were told this as far back as 1987 when the American Surgeon General stated that 80 percent of all diseases were diet related.
Research, national awareness campaigns and public education/advocacy can catalyze this change. For example, one educational approach is to utilize Americans’ love of technology. Everyone knows that mechanical systems – our beloved cars and computers – have operating specifications: cars need a certain grade of oil and oil changes every 2500 miles; we routinely defrag and backup our computers. We do these things because we know that definite deterioration/complete system failure will occur if we don’t honor the maintenance specs of our cars and computers. We need to extend this understanding to create an “Owners Specifications” model for the human body, with necessary and suggested dietary and behavioral procedures. These “Owner’s Specifications” must reflect the best contemporary health and behavioral research.
But change isn’t only about new research; it’s also about creating acceptance and getting resources to the general public. Dietary and behavioral change must begin immediately with the next generation.
MISSION, GOALS & OBJECTIVESSpirit In Action’s mission is to catalyze a national commitment to children’s health. This mission has three essential goals:
to provide American caregivers with a comprehensive view of the known
causes for the rising epidemic of mental, physical and emotional health
problems afflicting millions of American children;
to develop positive health awareness and acceptance among American youth;to advocate systemic health solutions via ongoing use of integrative healing
methods offered in nutrition, psychology, physical fitness, social practices,
body-mind techniques, and both alternative and conventional medicine.In 2003 – 2004 SIA will realize these goals by initiating two innovative programs that will break new ground by changing children’s diets, creating new perspectives on children’s health, expanding youth’s health awareness, and developing information and new health resources for youth, parents, teachers, and health professionals.
Our first program, “Healthy School Meals” (HSM), will create a healthy dietary model for the food service of an urban, multi-cultural Los Angeles school. This model will be developed, documented, evaluated and disseminated nationally to school administrators. (For program description, see p.13 & 14).
The second program, Healing America’s Youth, is a multimedia public awareness and education campaign in 3 formats: a book, a 4-part TV series, and an interactive website. Healing America’s Youth will detail the mix of dietary and lifestyle problems affecting the nation’s youth and present “real world” solutions acceptable to youth. (For program description, see p. 13 & 14; the Healing America’s Youth book outline and TV Treatment are also attached in the appendices.)
Both programs have quarterly milestone objectives that will provide an ongoing basis for documenting and evaluating progress. 2003 and 2004 Milestone quarterly objectives are listed on the following pages.
[ Healing America's Youth ]
Spirit
In Action
2525-E4
Arapahoe Ave. Suite 322
Boulder, CO 80303
949-307-7760
hchp@spiritinaction.org
Action Guide copy write @1994 Earthsave Foundation