Building a Culture of Physical Activity [Podcast Series]

• [:54] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Dr. Howard Koh

  • Dr. Koh is the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Kennedy School.  

  • Dr. Koh was 14th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Obama Administration and the Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health.

• [1:19]   Incorporating physical activity into daily life

  • “There's the physical and health benefits that we can all talk about. But there are also the emotional well-being and mental health benefits too. And then of course the people you meet and the camaraderie you build when you're involved in team sports is tremendous. So it's been a lifelong love for me. And it is still part of my daily life up through today.”

• [3:34]  Prioritizing daily physical activity

  • “And then your point, which has been essential for me, personally, is to just make it part of your daily routine. People have various ways to do this. I'm an early morning guy. So my wife and I get up early in the morning and we exercise part of the Zoom class now. And that's just part of what we do. It's funny, if I don't do it, I don't feel like the day can really start. And so it becomes an absolute priority for me. And I'm very, very grateful for it because I think it keeps you as healthy as possible.”

• [5:57]  Creating community through physical activity

  • “The other thing you've alluded to is the social aspect of this is hugely important. I am so grateful for the people I've met who I would otherwise never meet. Many of them now a lot younger than I am, if I could say, and they're a lot fitter than I am too, by the way...And we encourage each other and it's a wonderful community.”

• [7:25]  Policy makers prioritizing physical activity

  • “So this is another reason why I feel so grateful.  When I became Assistant Secretary, we had an incredible First Lady, Michelle Obama, who prioritized physical activity and fitness and healthy nutrition.  It was known as the Let's Move campaign. And so she was such a force that she mobilized, first of all, the whole administration, not just HHS, but the whole administration and then the whole country to focus on this critically important theme.”  

• [11:22] Building a culture of physical activity through cross-sector collaboration

  • “That's a classic definition of leadership that I love. Bringing people together for a common mission and saying, ‘Hey, no one of us can do this by ourselves.’ We need everybody literally at the table, developing plans and then trying to implement those and measuring progress, which is also not easy.”

• [14:12]  Physical activity as a magic pill

  • “In my view, there should be so much more emphasis on [physical activity]. And we simply don't. I don't quite understand it, because it's a life saving tool. It helps everybody's emotional well-being as well as their physical well-being. And, you know, we just have not had the attention that people like you are now bringing to it. So we need to double down on this if we're going to have a healthier future.”

• [15:30] Prioritizing disease prevention

  • “But I also saw way too early in my career, death and suffering that could have and should have been prevented and quite honestly, at the beginning of all that I was really upset by it and angered by it and frustrated by it, I didn't quite know what to do with it. And it dawned on me over time, that we needed more attention to prevention and ultimately to public health.” 

• [17:37] COVID-19 and physical activity

  • “So here we are now in COVID. We know that this fast pandemic has been fueled by the slow pandemic of chronic illness, of obesity, of hypertension, of chronic lung disease, chronic heart disease, so much of it could be prevented. And this is where the physical activity theme comes in. If we could instill this, particularly in kids—because I now firmly believe as a not just as a physician and professor but as a parent—that if it's instilled in kids at an early age and becomes just part of what they do every day, they can maximize that gift.” 

• [18:33] Knocking down silos

  • “So I now feel very passionately that for public health to improve, that we have to work with all sectors of society and get out of the health silo. So working with education and transportation, faith-based organizations—it's an area that I'm very committed to—and then also business.”

• [21:58] Building collaborations with the educational sector

  • “So again, harkening back to my own life, the more the educational sector and schools can make this a vital part of what they do on behalf of kids and as part of education, I think is critically important…[T]he more it's expected for kids to be involved in some level of activity and encouraging creativity there, I think the better off we're going to be as a society.” 

• [24:23] Investing in public health

  • “You know, we have so many crises in our society now about business, about the economy, about schools, about health. But the overriding message is we can't solve any of those other crises unless we solve the health crisis first. And then so much of COVID could have been and should have been prevented. This is where the investment in public health is so important. So one silver lining, I guess—if you can call it that—is that public health, our field, which was invisible to so many is no longer invisible. Everyone sees the vital importance of public health and prevention.”

• [27:03] Public health done well

  • “I like to say now that when public health works, absolutely nothing happens and all you have is the miracle of a perfectly normal healthy day. And in a time like this through COVID, I mean we all yearn for those days and we have got to get those days back again sooner rather than later. And so that's why this work is so important.”

• [28:39] The meaning of public service

  • “So that sense of service and the role of public service is something I never dreamed I would experience when I was a younger person, but here I am, I look back on that as the most meaningful chapters of my life. And so if that was relevant to me, maybe it'll be relevant to others because you really get to sit and think about what's important for populations, what's important for communities, the nation, the world, keeps your perspective broad. It keeps you ever humble about the need to keep learning and working with people. And then try to help the next generation be even healthier than this one.”