Joycelyn Elders Quotes

Our school education ignores, in a thousand ways, the rules of healthy development.

I feel that we can't educate children who are not healthy, and we can't keep them healthy if they're not educated. There has to be a marriage between health and education. You can't learn if your mind is full of unhealthy images from daily life and confusion about right and wrong.

And so to those who suggest that we are somehow 'harming' young women by encouraging them to take charge of their health we say this: We are not harming young women by educating them. We are arming them with information that they will carry with them throughout their lives.

If I could make any change in the health system, it would be education, education, education.

If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish.

What matters now is the well-being of our kids.

I want healthy children.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

As 17th U.S. Surgeon General, I was privileged to serve as the nation's doctor. I focused much of my time on promoting proven programs and individual steps that lead to good health.

What makes me angry? The education of children. How in God's name can you expect to have a functioning society the way we teach our kids?

There is simply not enough money available to support a system in which the lion's share of expenditures is devoted to acute care, with virtually nothing being spent on preventive medicine, i.e. health care.

I want us to be judged by the impact we have on the health of the people of Africa and the health of women. Improvements in the health of the people of Africa and the health of women are key indicators of the performance of WHO. This is a health organization for the whole world... But we must focus our attention on the people in greatest need.

Health is certainly extremely important, and we've done a number of things at Facebook to help improve global health and work in that area, and I am excited to do more there, too. But the reality is that it's not an either-or. People need to be healthy and be able to have the Internet as a backbone to connect them to the whole economy.

As a parent, the most responsible thing I can do is get as much information about my children as possible so I can then think through how I can make them as healthy as possible.

I have the ability and to have access to and to learn more in different areas in wellness and health because I have the door open to me to any doctor, any scientist, any hospital, any study around the world. I believe it's my responsibility to share that information with others.

The objective of the World Health Organization shall be "the attainment by all peoples of highest possible level of health.

Just like children must be taught to read in order to be successful, they must also be taught the skills that will help them stay healthy throughout their entire life.

Research shows that children in smaller families tend to do better in terms of nutritional, health and educational status compared to children in larger families.

Health is more than the absence of disease…It is also education….We have a health illiterate society.

[Public Health] means the saving and lengthening of lives of thousands of citizens, the extension of the vigorous working period well into old age, and the prevention of inefficiency, misery, and suffering. These advances can be made by organized social effort. Public health is purchasable.

We must form public-private partnerships to collectively improve children's health.

In an increasingly complex world, we have a simple and bold vision that all children should have the opportunity to grow up healthy.

I'm a mom, and my view of public education begins and ends with the fundamental question: Is this good for children?

When we have healthy children, we have a healthy community. They can learn. They can play. They can be part of the future. They can help you all do very well and prosper instead of suffering.

Whenever you have large numbers of people who are dying for preventable reasons, that constitutes a public health issue.