Hi my name is Madelynn Law. I'm a sophomore at Vanoss High School. This is my first year being a part of the Youth Action for Health Leadership (YAHL) program. There are two main campaigns we work on: CounterAct Tobacco and Elevate Student Health. Today, I am writing specifically about Elevate Student Health.

Our mission in Elevate Student Health is to improve our school wellness policy to make it comprehensive. Our three main focuses are ensuring access to clean drinking water, increasing healthy food options and implementing periodic activity breaks throughout the school day to increase the amount of physical activity we are getting.

The Elevate Student Health campaign offers opportunities that mainly take place at school. I have personally attended principal meetings and, school board meetings, and I have done a few Elevate survey collection events during different times throughout the day. All of these opportunities allow us to collect data, educate and gain support from key decision makers so we can improve our school wellness policy.

My goal for the work I am doing with Elevate Student Health is to give this generation and the next generations the healthy life they deserve. We consume more than half of our daily calories at school, and I know many kids who only have access to food and water at school and not at home. If that’s the case, we need to make sure that the water is clean and filtered, and the food must be nutritious. 

You should support improving school wellness policies because our future generations deserve access to everything they need to be healthy at school, especially since they spend most of their time at school. They should be able to come to school and not have to worry about having unfiltered water or putting unhealthy food in their body.

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By: Madelynn Law, Vanoss High School