President Donald Trump’s newest motion is bound to materially enhance the lives of so many Individuals: He’s reviving the Presidential Health Take a look at.
If you’re of A Sure Age, you in all probability simply flinched. The Presidential Health Take a look at, established in the course of the Eisenhower administration within the late Fifties, tortured the nonathletic schoolchildren of America till the 2013-14 college yr, when the Obama administration changed it with the Presidential Youth Health Program, which centered on kids’s well being, not their capability to do extra sit-ups in 1 minute than their friends.
However that’s not the form of well being the Trump administration is all in favour of. That form of well being is for wusses. In keeping with White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt, this may create “a culture of strength and excellence for years to come.”
Trump can be reestablishing the President’s Council on Sports activities, Health, and Vitamin, which can be led by Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Oh god, you simply know that Kennedy goes to take his shirt off and do push-ups. Or he may do pull-ups whereas carrying denims. The probabilities are countless. Possibly Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth exhibits up and so they can have a bro-off?
Elementary college college students play on the final day of courses in Chandler, Arizona, in Could 2023.
The scheduled visitors on the signing ceremony for this are an actual grab-bag of winners. There’s Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam, who thought it was an incredible thought to just accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump on Jan. 7, 2021, also called the day after the Capitol riot. There’s Harrison Butker, the kicker for the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, who gave a graduation speech in 2024 the place he railed in opposition to Catholic leaders for being insufficiently conservative and “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.” He went on to complain about Pleasure Month and abortion. So, mainly good for the Trump period.
Additionally current for the festivities: registered intercourse offender Lawrence Taylor, a retired NFL participant who pleaded responsible in 2011 to misdemeanor fees of patronizing an underage intercourse employee and sexual misconduct. Then there’s Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon, nonetheless a defendant in a lawsuit accusing her of ignoring baby intercourse abuse whereas she was an govt at World Wrestling Leisure. This doesn’t appear to be the best transfer for a president desperately hoping to shift individuals’s consideration away from his friendship with accused intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The resurrection of the Presidential Health Take a look at is in step with the opposite “health” issues promoted by Trump and Kennedy, lots of which simply appear to be the non-public fixations of 1 or the opposite. So we’ve acquired Kennedy pressuring firms to vary their meals dyes and getting Steak ’n Shake to cook dinner its French fries in rendered beef fats as a result of it’s, in his phrases, a extra “traditional” ingredient. Certain, tallow clogs arteries and causes excessive ldl cholesterol, however an elevated danger of coronary heart illness is a small value to pay for the crispy fries Kennedy mentioned persons are “raving” about. And who can neglect one in every of Trump’s biggest second-term wins to this point: getting Coca-Cola to agree to make use of cane sugar slightly than high-fructose corn syrup. Actually a game-changer, sir.
In the meantime, the administration has overseen a wholesale destruction of well being analysis and public well being efforts. It’s throwing out guidelines that may have lowered the quantity of “forever chemicals” in ingesting water. It has ignored a preventable measles outbreak. And it has been firing the individuals who assessment and approve new medication. These actions compromise the general public well being of all Individuals, however no less than schoolchildren can have the privilege of making an attempt to do a pull-up whereas everybody else watches.
A lot successful, a lot well being.