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My name is Carina Chen. I am a junior at Classen SAS @NE High School and a member of the leadership team at Youth Action for Health and Leadership (YAHL).

I first heard about YAHL in my biomedical class from my Youth Field Organizer (YAHL supervisor), Beverly. During the training, Beverly educated me and many of my peers about the unhealthy rabbit holes that Oklahoma’s youth are vulnerable to. These include following an unhealthy diet with little to no physical exercise and carelessly abusing harmful and addictive nicotine products. I also learned of the two campaigns that YAHL focuses on: CounterAct Tobacco and Elevate Student Health.

The CounterAct Tobacco campaign works towards changing policies to restrict youth’s access to nicotine products. Personally, I know multiple students who use vapes and even actively sell vapes in their schools. The campaign collects surveys in the community to present statistical data to Oklahoma legislators and senators. During the St. Patrick’s Day CounterAct Tobacco event, I was tasked with asking strangers to fill out the survey. This was my first experience regularly talking to strangers, and although it was difficult at first, I came out a more confident person. 

The Elevate Student Health campaign works towards changing policies to allow students healthier options and health education in schools. This campaign also collects surveys. However, they are strictly from students, school staff and parents. In my school, which is in OKCPS, students have complete access to water fountains, healthy options at lunch and are required to have one physical education credit to graduate. However, after attending the YAHL leadership team summit, I have seen many different student perspectives. YAHL is unique in that it connects students across the state and provides opportunities to students in rural areas. During the summit, other students shared their experiences about unsafe water fountains, very limited food options and no time allotted for movement. I have learned about the scarcity of healthy options and education in the underfunded schools outside of the city. 

I joined YAHL to have a bigger impact whilst being involved in my community. Additionally, YAHL is amazing for expanding viewpoints and improving one’s communication, leadership and public speaking skills. Youth activism is important because the younger generation needs to be prepared to take on the bigger challenges of the future.

My name is Braden Mensack. I am a senior from Keys High School and have been
advocating through the Youth Action for Health Leadership (YAHL) program for almost two
years. YAHL is a youth-led advocacy organization focused on improving the health and
well-being of youth in the state of Oklahoma. I decided that I needed to join the YAHL program
because I felt that it was my duty to make a difference and spark change within my community,
but I knew I couldn’t do it alone. The YAHL program became the perfect way for me to make a
difference while helping myself, and not to mention, have fun! The two issues that I see above
all else in my generation’s youth are their seemingly obligatory tendency to follow what everyone
else is doing and their decreased care for their own bodies. Both of these issues are
becoming increasingly more relevant from generation to generation.

First, people within my age group, based on what I have seen from my friends and peers,
have an almost indescribable desire or need to do whatever the people around them are doing; an example of this would be everyone wearing the same new shoes. This is obviously unhealthy as it deflects individualization which, in turn, creates situations in which youth believe that if they do not fit in with these social spaces, they are less than. But, more specifically, this is unhealthy for physical health with vaping becoming such an epidemic, and youth today believe that they are not “cool” if they don’t vape. YAHL has stepped in to fight this youth desire to be like everyone else by combating the vaping epidemic; more specifically, we, as youth advocates, fight these issues that we see on a legislative level. A change in legislation that puts power back into local communities’ hands and prevents big tobacco companies from selling to minors would change the youth’s mentality on what the people around them are doing and would promote the individualization of my generation.

Second, my generation has shown a significant decrease in the care of their health when
compared to other generations. I have seen this within my own school through the increased use of both alcohol and vapor products by my peers. This also goes to show how far the effects of a lack of youth individualization can go; the increase in the desire to be like others creates a decrease in the care and well-being of our own bodies. As an organization of youth fighting for youth, we must continue to go against the grain and continue to fight these harmful trends on a legislative level in order to change the actions and outcomes of our own generation.

With our generations becoming ever more connected, we must remember that at the end
of the day, we’re the same humans as those one hundred years ago. Though the increase in social media and pop culture trends has shifted our viewpoints from that of an individualistic standpoint to that of a cultural one, we must sit back and remember that, at the end of the day, we’re all just human. We must use organizations such as YAHL to advocate and raise awareness of these increasing social issues and fight them at the source–before they become an issue for future generations. The YAHL program has given me great advocacy opportunities and I have already begun to see the changes reflected in not only my peers, but also my school as a whole.

Hello, I’m Essence Felder. I currently live in OKC, Oklahoma, and I’m 16. YAHL stands for Youth Action for Health Leadership. YAHL’s main goal is to better youth’s lives as a whole, be it through CounterAct Tobacco or Elevate Student Health. I decided to join because I loved that YAHL is not only pointing out problems in the community, but they are actively trying to fix them. A couple of these problems are: hard to access water, wide-spread nicotine/tobacco products in schools (vape, e-cigs, ect.) and little to no healthy options at lunch. All of these problems, and more, YAHL can help to change for the better.

Water is a vital part of being healthy; especially during the hotter parts of the school year. Water not being widely available during school makes a lot of students dehydrated. In that state, it is very hard to learn. Elevate Student Health meets with people who can fix that (principals, etc.).

Nicotine products are all over schools. Everyone my age either knows someone who used nicotine/tobacco products or uses them themselves. CounterAct Tobacco wants to take power away from “Big Tobacco”. They want to make sure that teens don’t have any access to any nicotine products.

Schools don’t have healthy options anymore, or if they do, they are unappealing. YAHL wants to make sure that every school has good healthy food. As the saying goes, “If you eat well, you play well and you work well.” 

YAHL sees the problems with Oklahoma and works hard to fix them. Do you?