Graham Walker: Our Health Crisis Isn’t Personal – It’s Systemic

Graham Walker, Co-Founder at Offcall, shared a post on LinkedIn:

” ‘How is this news?’ … was my first reaction to this headline in the WSJ. I’m sorry, America — but what did you think was going to happen? You prioritize:

— Processed food over nutrition
— Cars over walkability
— Profit over access to care
— Individualism over societal support

…and you’re surprised this is the result? You’ve gotta be kidding me.

And what’s worse? These trends are compounding, and will keep compounding until something massive changes. Save me the “personal responsibility.” Or wellness influencers. Magnesium supplements or “mindfulness” will not help us. I’m talking about fundamental, societal rewiring.

1.  How much of your food comes from a box or a bag? And why do we buy it? Because it’s cheaper and more convenient. Why do we need cheaper and more convenient? Because Americans are poorer and busier than ever before.

2.  When I visit my parents in the suburbs, I am amazed at how little exercise I can do per day. Drive to the store. Drive to the park. Drive to get coffee. Drive to dinner. We have opted to setup our lives dependent on cars. This is one the reasons I love living in San Francisco: I get my steps and hills and parks for free, and barely ever use a car.

3.  We block access to cheap prevention, then pay the price later. No access to $25 primary care. Can’t afford 10¢ meds for blood pressure or diabetes. Hooray, we saved $500 in a decade! Unfortunately you’ve also spent $1,000,000 on the consequences of their stroke they had in year 7.

4.  Stress kills. You think people working two jobs, without childcare, in unsafe housing, are going to exercise and eat clean? No — they’re going to smoke more, drink more, and try to survive the only way they can.

None of this is rocket science. It’s health class from 4th grade. But we’ve spent 40+ years showing what we actually value — and it ain’t health.

And then you have the audacity to look to the doctors and the nurses as if this is our fault, as if we have the power to fix the choices of our society. We’re keeping the ship afloat with duct tape and bailing water. Do you really think the pills we prescribe can overpower the rest of the system we’ve setup? No statin or metformin will fix bad food, no movement, and relentless stress.

Pills, procedures, and advice are all we’re allowed to prescribe. I can’t make you eat healthier. I can’t prescribe fruits and veg. I can’t mandate 5,000 steps a day, or clean air, or better housing. So we’re going to offer things under our control: medicines.

You want to know the reason your doctor only gets 15 minutes with you? Because there are so many sick people. We’ve built up this system for 340 million people, and whaddya know, our American system is thriving!

Cheap. Fast. Superficial.

Business. Is. Booming.”

Afreen Shariff, Associate Director of Cancer Therapy Toxicity Program at the Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Duke Cancer Institute and Co-Founder of Citrus Oncology, shared a post by Graham Walker, adding:

” ‘Food’ for thought.

‘This isn’t surprising — it’s structural.’
Dr. Graham Walker’s viral post calls out the deeply entrenched systems driving America’s health crisis. From ultra-processed food and car-centric cities to profit-driven healthcare and lack of societal support, he argues that chronic disease in the U.S. is not about personal failure, but about policy failure.

No supplement or quick fix can outmatch poverty, stress, and systemic neglect. I see this everyday…most of my patients!! What do you think happens when so many have obesity + diabetes + poor lifestyle? —> Cancer.

I sit right at the front lines where patients I have followed for years, get a new diagnosis of cancer and on the flipside people with cancer, having a hard time, managing diabetes and other co morbidities. Until we rewire our society, doctors are left treating the fallout — not the root cause.”

Sarah Louden, Founder and CEO of Total Health Oncology, shared Afreen Shariff‘s post, adding:

“Very sad that this whole ‘viral’ article leaves out that the system—the whole system in the US—from cradle to grave— is not the patients fault either.

It’s easy to play the victim as the doctor that you can’t ‘out prescribe a lifelong of bad diet, movement, and mental health decisions’, yet most have no problem trying to. Every medicine prescribed for chronic disease creates the need for another medicine in a disconnected system that has patients confused about how to get and stay healthy. No one wants to be sick—not the poor person, not the rich person, not the high school drop out or the PhD graduate.

This is a sad, one sided account of how sick of the system providers are getting. Let me assure you that as patients, we are just as sick of it and yet when we complain—we are not heralded or pat on the back for speaking up. We are gaslit, accused, and ignored.

The one thing I know for sure—all of us become patients at one point in our lives. Its time to change the conversation from ‘you versus us’.”