Americans cannot drug and diagnose their way out of the national mental health and chronic disease crises. A huge part of our problem is our sedentary lifestyles, tech-fueled isolation, and childhoods spent primarily indoors. The Department of Health and Human Services has a new website to encourage Americans to reconnect with other humans and God's great outdoors.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the website in a video he filmed at a Colorado national park. GetActive.gov encourages Americans to eat "real food" instead of highly processed junk food. It also urges Americans to set a minimum bar of 150 minutes of physical activity per week and two days weekly with strength-building exercises. Kennedy believes this will go much further toward improving most people's health than any amount of Big Pharma pills and shots.
America faces more than a chronic disease epidemic that threatens our physical health. We also face a spiritual malaise that undermines our mental health.
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) June 19, 2026
Our children are increasingly isolated, fragmented, and anxious, spending more than 8.5 hours a day on screens.
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Kennedy emphasized in the video, "We have a chronic disease epidemic in our country. 80% of adults do not get enough physical activity. 77% of our kids can't qualify for military service. 35% of our teens are obese or overweight."
He pointed out what most modern doctors do not want to admit, which is that humans aren't just bodies; we also have souls. "But in addition to the chronic disease epidemic that affects physical health, we're also suffering through a spiritual malaise that affects our mental health — a malaise of isolation, of fragmentation, of atomization."
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Kids and teens used to spend the summers playing outdoors, riding bikes. walking to visit each other, playing sports and taking picnics outside. But in the age of social media and video games, that's no longer widely true. Every time I visit a historic monument or outdoor park, whether that's the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, George Washington's Mount Vernon, the Alamo, or the National Mall, I see teens and kids walking past statues and rides and sweeping vistas with their eyes glued to their screens. The same phenomenon is evident in restaurants and malls. It's as true of two-year-olds as of 15-year-olds.
Kennedy warned, "Our 16-year-olds are now spending 8.5 hours per day on [screens]. The principle cause of death now in that age group is suicide. They're consumed with anxiety, and no wonder." That factoid about suicide is horrifying. America's adults need to be more proactive about taking the screens away, quelling the temper tantrums, and raising kids capable of having a conversation or a stroll outside without accompanying digital entertainment.
When it comes to young Americans, Kennedy warned, "They don't know how to downregulate their feelings. They don't know how to mediate disputes or accept defeat. And the remedy for all of that is connection. You get connection through other people, but you also get it by connecting to creation. And that's a prescription not just for the chronic disease epidemic, but also for the mental health crisis in our country."
Kennedy offered his aid in helping Americans "connect with the national parks, eat real food, get outside, get active, and that's how you make America healthy again."
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