This week brought us a new report from the MAHA Commission, calling it “a sweeping plan with more than 120 initiatives to reverse the failed policies that fueled America’s childhood chronic disease epidemic.” But on reflection, it seems like MAHA bluster met the reality of health policy and turned into something that looks more like Let’s Move! It’s a collection vague promises to create a generation of healthier kids. All it will take is nudging them to eat right and get fit.
In her Food Fix commentary, Helena Bottemiller Evich sums it up:
“Washington has now had a couple of days to digest this 20-page strategy, and the consensus from health experts so far is basically: Yeah, this isn’t going to work. The MAHA Commission lays out some 128 recommendations, including things like maybe pursuing front-of-pack food labeling and potentially looking at guidelines to limit kids food marketing, but they are high level, vague and largely lack regulatory teeth.”
Rhetoric vs Regulation
There is a clear pattern here. RFK Jr has many startling things to say about food and health policy. But when it comes down to confronting difficult issues with food, any action on regulation is hard to find.
For example, the New York Times reports that the draft report leaked to the press in August said the administration would “find ways to lower added sugar and sodium in packaged foods.” But that idea disappeared from the final version. Another example would be the big talk about seed oils in the initial report. You will not find a single word about seed oils in this week’s plan. It seems that the folks who grow and sell those oils didn’t like that talk.
Emeritus Professor Kelly Brownell echoes the sentiments of many food policy advocates when he says the plan lacks any plans to require change:
“Administration after administration, independent of the political party, has been unwilling to tackle the food industry. As long as the industry isn’t required to change, it won’t.”
In The Atlantic, Tom Bartlett says MAHA is starting to look a lot like Let’s Move! 2.0. He has a point.
Click here, here, here, and here for more perspective.
An Imagined Encounter Between Michelle Obama and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, illustration created with Gemini Image Generation
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September 13, 2025 at 9:04 am, Mary-Jo said:
JFKjr brings nothing new or more helpful to the table that has not been tried, put forward, was already painstakingly underway by experts for many years and , actually, FIRED people who were really starting to move steps forward!!
September 13, 2025 at 10:02 am, Allen Browne said:
Yup! And look at what happened to the incidence of childhood obesity after “Let’s Go”
We need education about obesity as a disease
We need education that it is not the patient (or family’s) fault
We need access to multidisciplinary obesity treatment programs that utilize tools that work
Allen
September 13, 2025 at 10:07 pm, Katie said:
LOVE THIS image – you are spot on. But I’m just glad that they took the seed oils out – because I was so confused why I learned in Nutrition 101 that canola oil was one of the healthier oils – but now MAHA tells me that I shouldn’t use canola oil. How did these MAHA scientists hide their research for so long if it could have made our children happier.
Thanks again for speaking at our annual LOS Conference- we would love to have you back again next year if you are up to another trip to New Orleans 🙂