Health issue

I read with interest the Sept. 24 letter “Boosting Immunity” on the importance of a nutrition strategy. Required yearly courses on nutrition in K-12 education would not only benefit the students themselves, but even more their future children, as the quality of nutrition in the first few years of life has incalculable effects on an individual’s lifelong health.

In 2012 the American Medical Association adopted policy (H-170.961) that would “urge appropriate agencies to support legislation that would require meaningful yearly instruction in nutrition, including instruction in the causes, consequences, and prevention of obesity, in grades 1 through 12 in public schools and [that] will encourage physicians to volunteer their time to assist with such an effort.”

I have communicated with legislators in the past regarding this policy, but there seemed to have been little interest in this subject atthe time. Perhaps now is a good time to renew efforts to bring this importantpublic health issue to a new generation of legislators, especially since we have elections comingup.

BRUCE WILDER, M.D.

New Orleans The writer is a former longtime resident of Oakland.