It's the Brian Lairn Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now we continue our WNYC Centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things.

Today it's thing number 51, 100 years of the

American Wellness Movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s rise from health influencer, if you want to

call him that, to Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services,

raises concerns among public health experts, as we know, including 75 Nobel Prize winners

who signed a letter opposing his nomination. But RFK is not the first to promote the so-called

wellness regimen to the American public, not hardly. According to Shayla Love, staff writer at the

Atlantic, he quote fits into a long history of Americans who have waged battle against conventional medicine, unquote, often being both partly right, she says, and dangerously wrong.

So let's explore that long history now with Shayla.

Her recent piece for the Atlantic is titled, America Can't Break

its Wellness Habit.

Shela, thanks for coming on.

Welcome to WNYC.

Hi, Brian.

Thanks so much for having me.

And let's first step even further back than our timeline of the last hundred years

to about 200 years ago, the Graham Cracker was invented in the United States by one Stephen Graham,

a Presbyterian minister who's also known as the father of vegetarianism.

Who was Stephen Graham, and why do you begin your exploration of America's history of wellness

enthusiasm with him?

...