You probably have a benign habit that you can't explain — and you may not even remember when it started.
Maybe you wet your toothbrush before applying toothpaste, or wash your face first thing in the morning, or put your left shoe on first. You just started doing it one day, and now you've been doing it for years.
Habits are hard to break. Developing good ones at a young age is critical in helping to improve young people's health — and for the prevention of chronic diseases, also called noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Kids with good health habits can grow into healthy adults, but health education has to go further than teaching kids how to stop the spread of germs – students need practical tips on how to live healthy.
If you could give your middle school self a few pieces of advice, you might have done some things differently. And while we can't go back in time, we can make sure we're setting today's kids up for healthy futures.
To raise awareness of this important topic, we worked with educator and viral rapping sensation Dwayne Reed to create a fun video called "Stay Healthy" – aimed at inspiring young people to do just that.
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