MAHA's Focus On Improving Nutrition Is At Odds With Trump Policies

Forbes

02-07-2025

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 22: U.S. President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert ... More F. Kennedy Jr. attend an event introducing a new Make America Healthy Again Commission report in the East Room of the White House on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. The commission, which is tasked with studying the potential causes for the "childhood chronic disease crisis," recommends reassessing the nation's childhood vaccine schedule, scrutinizing ultra-processed foods and studying pesticides used in commercial farming. At the same time, the Trump administration has proposed a FY2026 budget of $94 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services — a reduction of about 26-percent from the 2025 level — cutting programs and staff at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Photo by)
In introducing the first Make America Healthy Again Commission report, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the focus is childhood chronic disease prevention, with a particular emphasis on nutrition. But several key Trump administration policies appear to be inconsistent with this goal. And the report does not include several notably absent topics that are known to cause certain chronic diseases.
The first MAHA Commission report released in May identifies multifarious drivers of childhood chronic disease, including poor diet and specifically the shift over time to ultra-processed foods, overuse of pesticides in agriculture, food dyes in products for sale in grocery stores and a cumulative overload of chemicals in the environment. The document offers a potpourri of high-level policy recommendations to counter these trends.
In a tweet, Kennedy touted on June 19th that 'artificial dyes and additives are being removed from America's food supply.' Thus far, however, only Red Dye No. 3 has been banned and this occurred under the Biden administration. Manufacturers have until Jan. 2027 to remove this specific dye from their products.
The HHS budget for 2026 proposes $14 billion in discretionary funding for programs that aim to reverse what Secretary Kennedy calls the 'chronic disease epidemic,' as it consolidates entities housed under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into the Administration for a Healthy America, namely the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity.
AHA is being called the 'primary federal agency committed to transforming the health of all Americans by addressing the root causes of chronic disease, promoting preventive care, advancing mental health and substance use services, and increasing access to a healthy environment and foods.'
But only $2 million is being allocated to nutrition, an amount experts suggest is inadequate. They believe the figure should be doubled to at least $4 billion to achieve the objectives laid out by Secretary Kennedy.
And despite the MAHA report raising concerns about American agricultural products, other Trump cabinet officials insist that the nation's food supply is safe. Differences in views on glyphosate, a commonly used chemical sprayed on crops, illustrate the disconnect. Glyphosate is cited in the report as a major contributor in the rise of chronic disease. It is a substance that may cause serious health problems, including cancer. But the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, doesn't want to further regulate glyphosate.
On food safety generally, Kennedy appears to be at odds with director Zeldin's decisions to deregulate pesticides. The MAHA report makes dozens of references to dietary guidelines and food standards in Europe that prohibit the use of certain pesticides in agriculture. However, Zeldin has promised no more regulations, arguing that European-style mandates would stifle economic growth.
Furthermore, Congress and the Trump administration back cuts to assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, that would seem to undermine efforts to improve people's access to food, whether of high or low quality.
Food and diet researchers are also criticizing the direction the National Institutes of Health are going in possibly stifling debate regarding the merits and demerits of different foods. According to STAT News, more than 70 top U.S. nutrition scientists signed a letter last month demanding that NIH director Jay Bhattacharya address alleged censorship at the agency, writing that their colleagues 'need the freedom to present their findings in scientific meetings without political oversight, and to author and co-author freely in the scientific literature.'
The letter is in part a response to censorship allegations from former top NIH nutrition scientist Kevin Hall, whose research on ultra-processed foods was cut short when he resigned in April, complaining of interference from his superiors.
The MAHA Commission report attributes adverse health effects to nutrient depletion owing to 'ultra-processed grains, sugars, and fats,' as well as intake of more calories and inclusion of food additives. There is empirical support for this. For example, a 2024 review of the evidence, which included dozens of analyses, linked 'higher consumption of ultra-processed foods to poor cardiometabolic health, increasing the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, and cardiovascular disease.' At the same time, the scientific evidence for how ultra-processed foods affect our health isn't unequivocal. In fact, according to a story by the New Scientist covering a recent meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, scientists don't agree that simply opting for less processed foods guarantees a healthy diet.
Additionally, former Director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations from 2015 to 2023, Susan Mayne, says the report omits other well-accepted drivers of chronic disease, such as high intake of sodium and saturated fat. Instead, it criticizes the current set of U.S. dietary guidelines for 'problematic reductionist recommendations' in reference to advice to 'reduce saturated fat' or 'limit sodium.' But in the case of sodium, this seems to ignore decades of research showing that sodium is over-consumed in the U.S., contributing to chronic disease.
There are other conspicuous apparent oversights regarding HHS policy. For instance, STAT News notes that the MAHA Commission report includes no mentions of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or binge-eating. Such eating disorders have been on the rise for decades, especially among young women and girls. Evidently, research on these eating disorders is being disproportionately affected by ongoing federal grant terminations, according to experts in the field.
Also, Reuters reports that despite rising levels of alcoholism, which is conducive to a myriad of chronic diseases, revisions to the U.S. dietary guidelines under RFK Jr. may loosen federal guidance on alcohol consumption that currently advises no more than one to two daily drinks.