Posts Tagged ‘food policy’

In 2016, the use of the word “numbskull” in English literature soared to a new high. It has remained high ever since. Though we cannot be sure why, we are confident that members of Congress are earning that label as they crash toward creating an utterly unnecessary American hunger crisis by cutting off SNAP food […]

Slogans are great. They serve as a tool for selling products, ideas, and, yes, even policies, because they stick with people and can attract support. But they don’t always hold up well under scrutiny and over time. As slogans go, Food as Medicine is having a good run. But it is wearing a little thin […]

FDA and the MAHA Commission seem to be making health labels for food and beverage products a priority. But it looks like the front-of-pack label in the current proposal is relatively ineffective. At least that’s what we’re seeing in a new randomized controlled study by Anna Grummon et al in JAMA Network Open. It was […]

Don’t look up statistics on hunger, says USDA. It only causes “fear mongering.” To make sure we don’t have to worry about that, the agency is canceling the survey research on food insecurity it’s been doing for 30 years. That’s right. USDA announced over the weekend that measurement of food insecurity is unnecessary: “The U.S. […]

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 […]

We are hearing much sound and fury about making America healthy and the noise is largely about improving the quality of the U.S. food supply. It would indeed be nice if MAHA brought us a better food supply. But in a thoughtful piece for The Atlantic, Yasmin Tayag says a more likely outcome may be […]

Making America Healthy is an industry with very low barriers to entry. Lots of people have fun with it. They also make lots of noise. The trouble is that because of those low barriers to entry, most of them, including some academics, do very little to actually make Americans healthy. Instead, they generate headlines and […]

Who needs 164 pages of nutrition mumbo jumbo? The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, yesterday told the House Appropriations Committee he will be releasing a four-page document that sounds a lot like U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Dummies. He says it will be done by August: “We have until January, […]

“Political cynicism is rising in many democracies throughout the world.” Explaining this, Ariel Hasell, Audrey Halversen, and Brian Weeks ascribe it to the influence of social media and demonstrate it with data from the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The trouble is that when cynicism proliferates, everything seems like B.S. So this week when Education Secretary […]

We find ourselves wondering, as Marion Nestle does, about the unlikely alignment of RFK’s MAHA concept with some of the ideas about food policy she has been advocating for decades. We do not always agree, but we have long admired Nestle’s convictions in taking on problems with food systems and the business model of the […]