Our kids need MAHA

 Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is working to MAHA—Make America Healthy Again. It’s a necessary and noble endeavor as Americans are not only suffering from chronic illnesses but also from obesity. It starts in youth.

I’m reminded of that whenever I take a ride. My wife and I used to be runners. Trail runs, marathons, all manner of shorter races, we did them all, and parts eventually wore out. We both have titanium knees. These days we ride recumbents. 

Graphic: TerraTrike GTS. Author.

Trikes when we ride together, and I ride my 20-year-old Lightning Phantom when I ride alone. Recumbents because of a police work neck injury, which doesn’t let me ride upright road bikes anymore. Recumbents relieve the stress on all those damaged neck discs and are as comfortable as conventional bikes are not.

Graphic: Lightning Phantom. Author.

I’m reminded because all those kids and adults on electric scooters, skateboards and bikes take me back.

No, we didn’t have electric versions of those things when I was a kid in the 1400s. Until we were old enough to get a learner’s permit, if we wanted to go somewhere, we walked, ran, or rode our bikes. Without really knowing it, we exercised. We largely thought we were just having fun, but we built strong bodies. We took the President’s Physical Fitness Test annually, and if we passed, we got a cool patch.

Way back when, running was something one did only in sports, and only in the off-season if one was a serious track-and-field athlete. I was, and I ran and rode countless miles, particularly during the summer.

Now, an official old guy, I ride for aerobic exercise. I can run, but my knees made that impossible years ago, and I want to try to keep my new knees fully functional for the rest of my life. Besides, riding, if you do it right and long enough, is fun, which brings me back to contemporary kids.

I’m seeing fewer of them on electric bikes and more on electric scooters, a few on electric skateboards, and more on electric mini-motorcycles with no pedals. I suppose they’d get some exercise when their batteries run dry, and they must push those weight stacks on two wheels home, but otherwise? And many of those kids don’t have that lean and hungry look so many of us had way back when.

We were a hardy lot. Schools wouldn’t close during blizzards until visibility was less than a block or so in town, so we’d bundle up and trudge and crawl over massive snow drifts to get to school. We’d climb ropes to the top of the gym and cavort on playground gear that would send safety Nazis into strokes today. We dodged metal lawn darts, rode in the backs of pickup trucks, got scrapes, bruises, stitches, and broken bones, and loved it all.

Today, parents buy kids electric bikes, which have apparently taken the place of exercise. Sure, I see some kids on real bikes, probably because their parents don’t want to spend the money on electrics, which can be pricey. Or perhaps because they are also worried about sedentary kids and the future.

Adults aren’t much different. My favorite recumbent shop, actually the only really competent one within reasonable driving distance, Angletech in Colorado Springs, tells me most of their trike sales are electric from the factory or as aftermarket add-ons. Electric drives add at least $2000 to the cost of a trike or two-wheeled recumbent.

Most trike riders are adults because recumbents must be adjusted for leg length by lengthening or shortening the boom, which also requires lengthening or shortening the chain. It’s not like raising or lowering a seat on a standard bike, and manufacturers don’t make trikes sized for children. They’re relatively expensive, and there’s little market for them because parents don’t want to buy a new machine every year or two.

At least those adults are getting out there and getting some exercise, but my wife and I need more. We don’t want to be those old folks who strain every muscle just getting out of a chair. 

Of course, some people might need an electric aid if they’re going to ride at all. But what’s the excuse for kids, or their parents? They get their kids electric bikes because, at nine or ten, they’re already world-class athletes and don’t need the exercise?

Maybe it gets them out of the house and off the video games. There’s something to be said for that. 

But maybe, just maybe, we need to think a little farther down the line, where the exercise you got when you were younger continues as you age, determines how long you live, and what sort of life you have as you get there.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/07/our-kids-need-maha/