Kickstart 2025: Health Goals, Dry January, and FDA Updates
Public Health Without Politics offers health tips, policy insights, and strategies to combat America's chronic disease crisis.
Read time: 2 minutes
Health Links to Kickstart Your 2025 Health Goals
12 Ways to Get Fitter in 2025 (The New York Times)
10 Tips to Help You Eat Healthier in 2025 (The New York Times)
Want to Lose Weight This Year? Start With What You Drink (The Wall Street Journal)
10 Ways to Keep Your Mind Healthy in 2025 (The New York Times)
New Year's Resolution Ideas: 25 Fun and Practical Goals to Reach for in 2025 (NPR)
Not into New Year’s Resolutions? Maybe try a “Winter Arc” instead…
Considering Dry January? Here Are Some Resources to Help
This year could be Dry January’s biggest yet, with millions of Americans expected to take part in 2025. The recent Dietary Guidelines kept the same advice to keep drinking at low levels. Like radiation and other chemicals, alcohol appears to have beneficial (hormetic) effects but there are conflicting opinions. If you do decide on dry January, watch out for sugar cravings to replace alcohol.
10 Health Benefits of Dry January (Newsweek)
Doing Dry January? 9 Tips to Get You Across the Finish Line (LAist)
Worried About Your Drinking? Check Out Our Dry January Advice (CNN Health)
Health Policy Focus: FDA's New 'Healthy' Food Labels
The FDA recently released a new rule that will update the criteria for "healthy" food labels to align with current nutrition science. Expect a lot of controversy over this rule.
First, nutrition science is far from settled over what is healthy. Second, what is healthy for one person may not be so for another person. Finally, it doesn’t address overeating.
As work around the world continues to create healthier foods and devices that will monitor our intake and take into account individual health and preference characteristics, better solutions are coming. One problem FDA has never solved is that any health claim on food, no matter what it is, tends to make people think that the food is healthy overall.
How this Affects You: Starting in 2028, consumers will see new labels on food packaging, marking products that meet the FDA's updated definition of "healthy."
Innovation Spotlight: Strive—Measuring Muscle Strain in Real Time
Strive is a new company that develops wearable technology designed to improve muscle performance and reduce the risk of injury by tracking and analyzing movement data. It basically tracks and helps you improve your muscle performance during exercise.
This kind of innovation, not government programs, is what will drive real improvements in the health of millions of Americans.
Inspirational Quote
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started." – Mark Twain
One More Thing
If you're on X, check out Dan Go (@FitFounder). He provides a lot of advice about exercise and one thing I believe is, “If exercise were a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed medicine in the world."—Covert Bailey
Have a great week,
—Richard