Better Meals, Fewer Pills: Making Our Children Healthy Again
House Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services
2025-09-09
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Source: Congress.gov
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Sorry. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services will come to order. Welcome, everyone. Without objection, I may declare our recess at any time. I don't expect to. I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement. Welcome to the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services and other stuff. Today we will tackle an important topic, the health and well-being of America's school children. The current state of American children's health is not great, and for years it's been going in the wrong direction. More than one in five Americans over six years old are obese, a 270% increase since the 1970s. So when I am asked to speak to a classroom of little children, I can't help but noticing that they are clearly much heavier than the children were in the 1970s. American children are diagnosed with prediabetes at a rate double the rate of 20 years ago, two decades ago. Rates of depression have nearly doubled since 2007. I think if we asked the children when I was in middle school, or when I was certainly in elementary school, what depression was, they never would have heard the word. Approximately 3 million high school students reported suicidal thoughts in the last year. A study shows that youth in the US are being prescribed psychotropic drugs at a rate significantly higher than our European countries. I don't know where the numbers are around, the number of kids getting psychotropic drugs in the 60s or 70s when I was a child, but back then I would never have known it was even one of my classmates.
15% of American boys and 8% of American girls have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity, hyper attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and prescribed daily stimulant pills as a treatment. Something else that I didn't know was even going on when I was a child probably because it wasn't going on almost at all. We are literally giving millions of our children amphetamines and other potent stimulants. Meanwhile, the modern American childhood bears little resemblance to the childhoods we ourselves experienced just a few decades ago. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American children spend an average of 7.5 hours per day looking at screens. No wonder they, well, we're coming up to the next bullet point. Numerous studies have found a link between increased screen time and anxiety, depression, obesity, sleep problems and more. 27% of our youth between the ages of 17 and 24, 77% of our youth between the ages 17 through to 24 would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to obesity or other health conditions. Isn't that just shocking? We're gonna read that again. 77% of our youth between the ages of 17 and 27 would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to obesity or other health conditions. Isn't that scary? It's scary. Children enrolled in Medicaid or their state's children health insurance program are more likely to be diagnosed with a behavioral health disorder
These are often children from single-parent households due to the lower income qualifications for Medicaid. The number of child psychiatrists in the US has grown over 37% in the last seven years. The question is, did it help? Our children are struggling with their mental and physical health, all the while being over-medicalized by a healthcare system that does not hesitate to prescribe more pills that would help. On top of that, too many children are not eating the nutrient-dense foods they need for healthy growth and development. Foods that provide important nutrients to the diet, such as fruits and vegetables, dairy, whole and enriched grains, should be encouraged. Instead, children are increasingly being fed ultra-processed foods, such as soda, candy, and chips. the makers of which lavish campaign contributions on politicians. This in part is contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic impacting an estimated 14 million children in the US. The most recent CDC study on weight gain trends over time found that the average weight in Americans has increased 24 pounds since 1960. I notice that when I speak at my local schools. I mean, I don't say it, you know, your kids look fat. I don't say it, but I think it. So I'm glad the Trump administration through HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins are working hard to bring attention to and solve this crisis. On May 22nd of this year, the Make America Healthy Again
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