Jeanne Downes’ childhood was spent walking, swimming and playing hide-and-seek until dark with the neighborhood kids.
“My granddaughter doesn’t do that,” she said. “We got to go out and play more.”
Downes, director of the Food Bank of the Rockies’ Kids Café, served healthy food to youngsters at Rude Recreation Center on Tuesday as the federal government’s “A Healthier U.S. Starts Here” tour touched down in Denver.
The program’s mission is to tout the benefits of disease prevention.
“There’s a lot of diseases that are preventable if people will just take care of themselves,” said Joe Nuñez, regional director of the Department of Health and Human Services. “We’re trying to encourage people to take responsibility for their health.”
It used to be that Medicare, a federally funded health-insurance program for those age 65 or older, would just shell out payments for ailments. But that has changed in the past couple of years, Nuñez said.
“It made more sense to promote prevention,” he said.
Now, all new Medicare enrollees have access to free screening tests, flu shots and smoking-cessation counseling.
Colorado has about 540,000 people on Medicare. Nationally, there are 43 million people enrolled.
The tour bus will hit all 48 states in the continental U.S.
Organizers said it’s never too early to start the education process. On Tuesday, the focus was kids. Servers fed them fresh fruit, milk and granola bars.
Downes said kids are less healthy these days for a variety of reasons. They play more video games, have more electronic distractions and don’t venture outside as much.
But it’s not all their fault, she said. A culture that calls for constant parental supervision curbs children’s natural tendency to get out and explore, she said.
She still encourages her 9-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth, to go horseback riding, shoot hoops and take more walks.
“The time it takes me to fit it in my schedule is tough,” Downes said, “but it’s worth it.”
Staff writer Vimal Patel can be reached at 303-954-1638 or vpatel@denverpost.com.
