As a millennial who grew up in Ghana and now lives in the US, I find a lot of the “Make America Healthy Again” messaging from Gen Z influencers both laudable and disconnected from the reality I have known.
When I was growing up, public health campaigns made the importance of vaccines against childhood killer diseases abundantly clear and simple. Parents didn’t argue about their effectiveness on social media. Instead, they lined up to protect their children, because they had seen frequently and personally the terrible impact of illnesses like measles and polio. It’s why skepticism about vaccines has always struck me as bizarre. Big Pharma did not consider vaccines a profit-driven scam, but life-saving interventions that allowed us to grow up healthy. This is why my generation finds the anti-vaccine subtext in MAHA narratives odd. Nurturing good habits like clean eating and wellness are beneficial, though they can’t replace effective public health. For a lot of millennials like me, health is not just about personal lifestyle choices — it’s also about collective responsibility. Vaccines save people and, more importantly, protect entire communities.
To conclude, as much as I love the Gen Z’s penchant for questioning systems and their commitment to healthier living, messages that undercut faith in science-based medicine risk undermining decades of progress. Wellness trends come and go, but people shouldn’t view the foundation of public health, including childhood vaccinations, as optional or suspect.
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