The White House on Thursday released its long-awaited “Make America Healthy Again” report, painting a dire picture of American kid’s health. The lengthy federal assessment’s goal is to discover the foundation causes of chronic diseases akin to diabetes, obesity and neurodevelopmental disorders in children.
“Our youngsters are the sickest kids on the planet,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a call with reporters Thursday morning.
Ultraprocessed food and environmental toxins were at the highest of Kennedy’s list of problems that must be urgently addressed to curb increases in chronic diseases during childhood. The report also cited sedentary, technology-driven lifestyles and the overprescribing of medicines.
The report was heavy on outlining problems, but light on concrete solutions.
“The subsequent stage of this process is to give you policy recommendations for the president,” Kennedy said.
Trump commissioned the report in February in an executive order establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission, a gaggle of high-ranking federal officials tasked with reviewing research and making recommendations on chronic disease in children. The report echoes the priorities of Kennedy, who chairs the commission.
Kennedy said Thursday that the assessment will inform a follow-up report on policy recommendations to be released in the subsequent 100 days. He added that there may be “no budget” to support the initiative at this point, provided that “there isn’t any concrete policy that might be funded in a budget.”
“I believe everybody desires to prioritize the ultraprocessed food crisis” in those policy recommendations, he told NBC News on the decision. Such foods have been linked to obesity, heart disease and cancer, however the strength and quality of those studies vary.
As health secretary, Kennedy has been outspoken about all 4 subjects highlighted within the report. In his first nearly 100 days in office, he announced that he was asking the food industry to phase out artificial dyes from the food supply and directed the Food and Drug Administration to revise a rule that enables food manufacturers to make use of additives which might be “generally recognized as secure” without notifying the federal government. He also praised local efforts to restrict cellphone use in schools, ban fluoride in public water systems and prohibit the acquisition of soda and energy drinks under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly often called food stamps.
Kennedy has also called attention to what he sees as serious health risks related to pesticides — specifically, the weed killer glyphosate, which Kennedy has said is linked to a spread of diseases, including cancer. The evidence itself is mixed.
While the MAHA report was widely anticipated to deal with pesticides, it as an alternative highlights the “cumulative load of chemicals within the environment,” mentioning pesticides alongside other chemicals like PFAS, microplastics, fluoride, phthalates and bisphenols.
Many Republican lawmakers and members of the agricultural industry had expressed concern leading as much as the report’s release that criticizing pesticide use could endanger farmers’ livelihoods and erode public trust within the food supply.
Kennedy told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday that he wouldn’t take any motion to jeopardize the roles of farmers who depend on glyphosate. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said on Thursday’s press call that the federal government will proceed to usually review the security of pesticides, but noted that abrupt changes in agricultural practices could adversely impact the domestic food supply.
While the MAHA report addresses some real issues, “the issue is that they should give you meaningful solutions,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
The report offers some hints of where the MAHA Commission might select to put its focus. As an example, it recommends that the National Institutes of Health fund long-term trials comparing the results of eating whole foods, reducing carbohydrate intake and minimizing ultraprocessed foods on obesity and insulin resistance in children.
It also criticizes the present federal dietary guidelines for not explicitly addressing ultraprocessed foods, claiming the rules have “a history of being unduly influenced by corporate interests.” An independent advisory committee that evaluated the dietary guidelines under the Biden administration didn’t recommend any immediate changes for 2025-2030 to account for ultraprocessed foods.
The Trump administration is anticipated to release a brand new, updated version of the rules before the top of the 12 months. Kennedy, whose department is overseeing the revision in tandem with the Department of Agriculture, has said that the new edition can be scrubbed of influence by the food industry.
The MAHA report also recommends more research on the long-term health outcomes of commonly prescribed pediatric drugs. The report claims there are proven harms related to overtreating children with antibiotics or medications for ADHD and depression, and “potentially major long-term repercussions” related to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (a category of antidepressants), puberty blockers and GLP-1 agonists (the category of weight reduction and diabetes drugs that features Ozempic).
Benjamin said most of the suggested research areas within the report are already being studied, adding that the Trump administration’s massive cuts to NIH grants might be at odds with their goal.
“They keep saying that they need to do ‘gold standard research’ but they’ve cut funding from most of the nation’s leading academic centers,” he said.
The report made no mention of a number one reason for kid’s deaths within the country: guns.
