Improving Public Health and Immunity

We need active, innovative public health campaigns and support to motivate and enable everyone to become healthier and beat the virus. This must involve making it affordable to eat healthily, access sport and participate in useful outdoor activity. Making it easier for us to actively participate in reducing our use of the earth's resources, especially fossil fuels, will also reduce stress and improve our mental health. In order to engage the public and businesses, campaigns should state that you are doing this to improve the nation's ability to fend off the virus and improve our immune response to it. The longer term benefits will leave a positive impact and create a healthier and happier population.

Improve diet
Extend free school milk/milk shakes/orange juice/fruit/ meals; supermarkets not allowed to discard edible food, but must provide it free or at reduced price to individuals or groups providing healthy food to the needy; introduce the sugar tax; local training/classes in healthy, vegetarian eating; more access to local food and organic food.
We need community farms, run as social enterprises/co-operatives producing the food local people want; each community could produce its own eggs, mushrooms, meat, potatoes, carrots, turnip and other vegetables, soft and hard fruit, cheese, butter, yoghurt, icecream, bread and cakes. Local people should run these establishments, with professional help, and schools should be actively involved. They should be based on organic and permaculture principles.
Ensure everyone knows how to adequately supplement the vitamins and minerals in their diet, especially vitamins D and C, in conjunction with community monitoring of the blood levels of these parameters in the population.

Improve access to exercise and sport
Young people given cheaper access to sports coaching qualifications; free/affordable outdoor sports clubs encouraged, supervised and with coaching eg tennis walls and courts, outdoor swimming, keep fit, yoga, ti che, heritage walks; running; athletics; increase safe cycling opportunities; active involvement in local community farm; teams to conserve and enhance local biodiversity and eradicate invasive species.

Empower people to reduce global warming, pollution, waste, loss of biodiversity
Local groups need to be set up to inform, organise and instigate local measures, in conjunction with local and national government, with targets for housholds and businesses.

Our physical and mental health is very poor, especially within deprived communities. Prolonged stress due to poverty, disempowerment and uncertainty, together with poor diet and lack of exercise, is producing cumulative health problems. Our general health and immune responses needs to be improved innovatively so we are well equipped to counteract this deadly virus. Empowering people improves health.

Chicken today is said to have half the nutritional value of chicken produced 50 years ago. Fewer people have physical jobs, many sports are too expensive and there are few opportunities for us, especially children, to connect with nature and be active outdoors.

People find it hard to be motivated when they feel down-trodden and under-valued. It becomes difficult to see the point of reducing waste and plastic use when you can hardly feed your children. Many people feel hopeless about surviving the pandemic because they cannot afford good food. Many young aspiring sports people have been confined for too long, increasing drug and alcohol use, weight gain and physical deterioration.

People want to play an active role in saving the planet but it is hard to find out how they can get involved.