My experience as a school nurse taught me that we need to make a concerted effort, all of us, to increase physical fitness activity among our children and to encourage all Americans to adopt a healthier diet that includes fruits and vegetables, but there is more.

I want to thank the efforts of the American Public Health Association and its 200-plus partners who have organized events around the Nation that serve to raise everyone's awareness of the need to improve public health.

In America today, the percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight is more than double what it was in the early 1970s.

As we may know, osteoporosis affects around 10 million Americans, most of whom are over 55, and it is the cause of an estimated 1.5 million fractures annually.

What we need to do is really improve energy efficiency standards, develop in full scale renewable and alternative energy and use the one resource we have in abundance, our creativity.

Nurses serve their patients in the most important capacities. We know that they serve as our first lines of communication when something goes wrong or when we are concerned about health.

My experience as a school nurse taught me that we need to make a concerted effort, all of us, to increase physical fitness activity among our children and to encourage all Americans to adopt a healthier diet that includes fruits and vegetables, but there is more.