Future of the Business World Podcast · Wharton Global Youth Program

Shining a Light on Health and Fitness in the South Side of Chicago

November 21, 2023·21 min·1 clip

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and it sparked change in my life.

Carter Chang, a high school senior, shares how his mother's breast cancer diagnosis in September 2020 sparked a health and fitness journey that became a social enterprise. During COVID quarantine, Carter discovered the benefits of exercise and nutrition, which contributed to his mother's cancer recovery in spring 2021. Rather than keeping this knowledge personal, Carter recognized the lack of nutritional resources in his South side Chicago community—an area with significant food deserts and swamps. He developed Yeast Way (spelled Whey) with three core components: nutritional education talks at farmers markets, semester-long fitness courses in charter schools, and community health events. His program integrates personal storytelling with academic rigor, including research with his high school chemistry teacher on the science of nutrition and an economics internship at University of Chicago. Carter's approach demonstrates how teenage entrepreneurship can address genuine community health inequities while remaining grounded in both lived experience and scholarship.

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