Donald Trump and maga Republicans do harm to children's development cutting health and food programs

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe:  As a clinical psychologist with my career working in medical settings and, specifically, with adolescents and their families, I am troubled by the news that Donald Trump is reviving the Presidential Fitness Test for America’s schoolchildren.

The test will have no meaning in a vacuum. In the past, such tests were either scorned by the fit or feared by the not so fit. 

Yet, I wonder how children, who may have lost their nutrition programs, and their health care are expected to become healthier. Even their after-school programs, which often provide safe physical activities, are under threat.

More important than tests are available adult role models. So it was horrifying to see former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender, at the White House event❗ ⚠️

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will oversee the test’s administration, commented that his documented, long-term heroin addiction, which began in his teens, was finally conquered by a spiritual awakening years later. (❓Maine Writer- Did RFKjr's "awakening" happen before or after he was stricken with brain worms❓)

Perhaps these men are now fit, but they are certainly not role models for adolescent health. And the president? Apart from his criminal record, here is an overweight man who complains about the correct type of sugar in his soft drinks and who has greeted collegiate athletes at the White House with literal towers of highly processed fast food. His exercise❓ Driving around in a golf cart.

From Carol Landau in Providence, Rhode Island

The writer is a clinical professor emerita of psychiatry and human behavior and medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a psychological consultant on higher education.