5 Things RFK Can Do To Make America Healthy Again

The confirmation of America’s new Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., offers a generational opportunity to reinvigorate the nation’s health before the twin epidemics of obesity and chronic disease become endemic.

In our new book, Fat And Unhappy: How “Body Positivity” Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself), we explain how the food and pharmaceutical industries have preyed on the ignorance and emotional baggage of obesity to profit off a nation left chronically fat, sick, and depressed. Simply put, Americans are eager to be happy and healthy but don’t know how, and corporate America would like to keep it that way.

“If I’m given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis and reform our food production, I promise that within two years we will watch the chronic disease burden lift dramatically,” Kennedy said in his Phoenix endorsement speech of then-Republican nominee Donald Trump. “We will make Americans healthy again.”

Now, Kennedy, confirmed as HHS secretary on Thursday, has that chance. Here are five things we believe Kennedy should do immediately.

1. Flip The Food Pyramid

The federal government abandoned the archaic food pyramid as the official dietary visual guide in 2011, but the incumbent “MyPlate” infographic to replace the pyramid of the food industry is not much better.

Then-First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the replacement chart more than a decade ago as she led the Obama administration’s crusade against childhood obesity on the eve of a renaissance in nutrition.

“This is a quick, simple reminder for all of us to be more mindful of the foods that we’re eating,” Obama said at a press conference. “We’re all bombarded with so many dietary messages that it’s hard to find time to sort through all this information, but we do have time to take a look at our kids’ plates.”

The dietary guidelines, however, remained reliant on outdated science unfairly critical of low-carb, high-fat diets for metabolic health. The MyPlate model represented a missed opportunity in the Obama administration to change the trajectory of childhood obesity and the nation’s health at large with Americans left confused on how to handle the swelling crisis. Today, the number of children and adolescents aged 2-19 struggling with obesity and severe obesity are far higher than when Barack Obama took office.

HHS is responsible for updating the dietary guidelines with the Department of Agriculture every five years. Now is the time to radically re-examine the guidelines for a new administration determined to implement the latest science without industry influence.

2. Reform Food Subsidies and SNAP Benefits

Federal food subsidies distort agricultural markets and serve as corporate handouts to the food industry. More than 70 percent of American calories are filled with industrialized products subsidized by taxpayers.

The only reason farmers grow so much wheat, corn, and soybeans are because of federal programs that incentivize their production for colossal food processors. Kennedy should work to reformulate food subsidies in the direction of healthier, better foods such as organic animal agriculture over the mass production of corn and soy ready for engineering into frankenfoods.

Taxpayers also subsidize junk food manufacturers in the form of food stamps, an issue Kennedy has already pledged to tackle in a September op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.

“Nine percent of all [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] funding goes to sweetened drinks, according to 2011 data,” Kennedy wrote. “It’s nonsensical for U.S. taxpayers to spend tens of billions of dollars subsidizing junk that harms the health of low-income Americans.”

While Kennedy was nominated to lead HHS, and not the agency in charge of SNAP benefits, which is the Department of Agriculture, that doesn’t mean Kennedy has no influence over the issue as the administration’s chief crusader on obesity and chronic disease. Food giants capture billions of tax dollars every year in federal food stamp spending, and Americans are sick of funding bad habits.

3. Prioritize Preventative Medicine

An area Kennedy will have direct control over is the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) agency priorities. Kennedy explained in the Wall Street Journal he wants to “devote half of research budgets from the NIH towards preventative, alternative and holistic approaches to health.”

“In the current system, researchers don’t have enough incentive to study generic drugs and root-cause therapies that look at things like diet,” Kennedy wrote.

As we reported in our book, the American health care system has transformed into a sick care system as the food and pharmaceutical industries have far more money to bank from treating the symptoms of disease rather than curing or preventing disease in the first place. Just 3 percent of federal health care spending goes towards disease prevention. Kennedy has an opportunity to shift the paradigm so the priority of taxpayer dollars are spent to prevent Americans from becoming sick to begin with.

4. Make Our Food Less Toxic

Far too many chemicals in everyday American food have been banned in the European Union due to their high toxicity and detrimental effects on health. For example, most Americans probably have no idea that titanium dioxide, a food additive that creates a shine or brightness, lurks in roughly 13,000 items, including popular brands of soups and mac and cheese. In 2021, the European Food Safety Authority found titanium dioxide can cause chromosomal damage and break DNA strands. Research also shows that it can cause neurotoxicity and inflammation in animals. The European Commission banned titanium dioxide as a food additive in the European Union three years ago.

This is just one of many examples, though. It’s time for the FDA to re-examine toxic ingredients like titanium dioxide, potassium bromate (a suspected carcinogen), brominated vegetable oil (known for causing nervous system damage), and propylparaben (a preservative associated with fertility disruption and hormonal imbalances).

Kennedy has a unique opportunity to put pressure on the federal organizations that are in charge of food safety and re-examine additives which might be contaminating the supply. Food dyes have long been associated with hyperactivity, irritability, and aggression in children, but well-meaning parents everywhere have no idea that it appears in the most innocuous places, like fruit gummies that are marketed as healthy. What would the future of our children look like if we eliminated these harmful endocrine disruptors from their daily diet?

5. Recruit Melania, and Don’t Be Obama

Beauty is subjective, health is not. Both are aspirational, and neither have to be toxic.

Melania Trump has what most others don’t: a portfolio as an internationally-recognized supermodel whose memoir redefines body positivity in an era of corporate-sponsored gluttony. In her book published last fall, Trump celebrated her sober lifestyle free of drugs and alcohol while revering the human body.

“The female form was once revered and honored in Western culture,” she said, writing in response to controversy around her previous nude modeling. “I believed then, as I do now, that women should take pride in their bodies, not feel shame.”

Trump’s participation in the latest obesity crusade doesn’t need to turn this into a vanity campaign. Her figure speaks for itself. Food and pharmaceutical giants, meanwhile, as outlined in Fat and Unhappy, have bankrolled apathetic messages of “Body Positivity” to enable gluttonous lifestyles that can be mined for sick care dollars. To pretend the pursuit of physical attraction is not an incentive to motivate Americans to eat and move better is a delusional exercise in the kind of corporate-sponsored activism that has doomed past efforts, especially when sexual vitality is probably one of the strongest impulses to incentivize a restoration of health and wellness.

Looks aren’t everything, but not they’re not nothing either. Was Michelle Obama dancing on television with Ellen Degeneres really going to convince Americans to eat more vegetables? No, but videos of Kennedy flexing six-pack abs while doing push-ups in his 70s probably have. So too will a first lady standing beside Kennedy showing off her flawless skin as the pair stress the virtues in healthy eating. But while Obama’s activism tried to make an ally of the food industry and lectured children to put down cupcakes, the Trump movement is determined to convince Americans to make better choices by educating the public on what’s actually in those cupcakes.

The first lady has already pledged to launch a second crusade for childhood wellness. Any initiative to “Be Best,” however, would be incomplete without an educational component on nutrition given the recent renaissance in metabolic psychiatry, which has traced myriad mental disorders to improper diet and lifestyles.

A new campaign to promote exercise and healthy eating is also a natural fit to drive a rebranded initiative with its origins in the elimination of childhood bullying. Name nastier comments kids have heard growing up than snotty remarks about their size. In fact, many Americans today will testify childhood was an exceptionally painful time when they began to put on weight. In a perfect world, nobody should be the subject of derogatory comments about their appearance, but we’re far more likely to end body shame when we eliminate anything to shame in the first place.

Tristan Justice is a national correspondent for The Federalist and the co-author of “Fat and Unhappy: How ‘Body Positivity’ Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself).” He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here. Buy “Fat and Unhappy” here. Gina Bontempo is a multi-certified trainer and health coach helping people get fit, develop new habits, and change their life since 2011. She earned her Master of Theological Studies at Harvard University, where she was trained as a grief counselor and worked in hospice homes with terminally ill patients and their families.