health

Why Can’t We All Go to Fancy Yoga Classes?

Economic and Cultural Disparities Have Stacked the Deck Against Healthy Choices in America. But It Doesn't Have to Be That Way

Americans have more ways to be healthy than ever before. Organic vegetables line grocery store shelves. Yoga studios crowd city streets. Fitbits remind us to skip the elevator and Rocky Balboa it up the stairs.

But just because all these waist-thinning options exist doesn’t mean everyone has access to them. Fresh produce, fancy gyms, and habit-tracking technology are expensive, and cost is one of many prohibitive factors that keeps millions of people from taking good care of themselves.

The obesity rates in America are staggering; more than a third of adults deal …

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Why I Quit High School Football

I’d Waited My Whole Life to Play, But the Hits and the Pain Outweighed My Desire for Glory

by Rian Bosse |

I wore football pads, real pads, like the pros wear, for the first time when I was 12 years old, walking out onto the practice field at the start of …

The Shaman Who Transformed My Schizophrenic Son

After a Decade Cycling Through Hospitals and Drugs, a Trip to Africa and a Foray into Tribal Medicine Gave Our Family Hope

by Dick Russell |

At the age of 17, after a wonderful summer of fishing and learning to surf, my son, then in his junior year at a Boston high school, told me one …

The Call of Home at the End of Life

My Quanzhou-Born Father Needed to Say Goodbye to China Before We Said Goodbye to Him

by June Shih |

“In his condition, you’ll have to take him home business class,” the doctor in Beijing had said. “Bring sleeping pills.”

As we boarded our flight back home to Washington, D.C., …

Dances with Obamacare

A Year of Major Illnesses and Expenses Has Our Family Playing a Game of Musical Chairs with Changing Doctors and Health Plans

by Catherine Keefe |

At the exact moment President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed that “change has come to America,” I stood at the foot of my husband’s bed in the cardiac ICU of Mission Hospital …

I Can’t Cure Your Child’s Obesity

Growing Up, I Imagined a Magical Solution to My Weight Issues. There Isn’t One, But My Clinic Is Finding Ways to Help Families of Overweight Kids.

by Leticia Ibarra |

Of the 10 children in my family, I was the only one who was obese. I didn’t know it at the time, but my family mirrored obesity trends in Holtville, …


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