My name is Amare Swierc, and I am the founder of Art of Health teen. Health has always been a priority in my house. My mother has always prioritized organic and healthy snacks.

Sophomore-year in high school, I fell ill with Epstein Barr Virus and found myself trapped in bed for months, with years of recovery regimens ahead of me. I was secluded from the world, and my health plummeted.

During that time, I realized that all of my past behaviors of eating junk food and disregarding my mental health actually made me more susceptible to this illness that had overtaken me. As I recovered, I started to notice those same habits in my friends and the teenagers around me. I thought to myself, “What will happen to them if they continue my bad habits?”. When I tried to find more information about what is happening to teenagers, the information was sparse. There was little representation of teenage issues, and even less information about how teenagers can become healthy — the teen years are right in between the research done on adults and children.

I started ‘Art of Health’ as a resource for my peers to start their journey to sustainable health and find representation on how the teenage population is feeling so that they know they are not alone. Now, it is a safe space in which teens can find what they need to become the best version of themselves and support their journey to health.