Can the right diet really cure all our health problems? |
MAHA’s new food directives want you to know “food is medicine.” | Kinga Krzeminska/Getty Images
If there is one universal treatment that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again sees for all of the country’s medical problems, it’s food.
Borrowing a phrase that has become ubiquitous in health policy circles and the influencer ecosystem that drives so much of our discourse these days around health and wellness, Kennedy has declared: “Food is medicine.”
And this month’s release of new dietary guidelines for the country portrayed better eating as the cure to America’s chronic disease crisis. “My message is clear: Eat real food,” Kennedy said when announcing his new inverted food pyramid.
It is a message that resonates — and for good reason. Many chronic health problems, from hypertension to diabetes, can be the consequences of a poor diet. Ultra-processed foods have been the target of criticism not just from Kennedy but a wide range of medical and public health groups in the past few years.
But there’s a major problem with Kennedy’s vision: Simply insisting that people “eat real food” does not make it any easier for them to find or afford nutrient-rich meals in a country where most grocery stores are awash in fatty, sugary, and salty treats and over-processed foods.
Instead, he places the onus for healthy eating on the consumer rather than focusing on improving the food environment that makes it so hard for many Americans to eat healthy diets in the first place.
“It’s part of the whole MAHA movement to promote individual responsibility. That’s the constant mantra. Do your own research and make your own personal decision about how you feel about these things, irrespective of the science,” said Marion Nestle, a long-time nutrition policy researcher at New York University. “But we know from decades, and decades, and decades of research that individual responsibility is not enough.”
The hidden meaning in RFK Jr.’s “food is medicine” message
Even though doctors and nutritionists have been clear about the negative impacts of consuming too much ultra-processed foods, Kennedy’s were the first federal........