Why Fast Food Could Be MAHA’s Next Target

Back in September, Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson convened a discussion on health and nutrition, in what could be considered the kickoff meeting of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. It was just a couple of weeks after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had penned an op-ed under that headline for the Wall Street Journal, proposing an agenda for an incoming Trump administration. At the event, doctors, activists and social media influencers testified about what was making Americans sick and what could heal them.

Kennedy—months before he would be named President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services—was anointing himself the leader of a loose coalition that ranged from wellness gurus and regenerative agriculture advocates to critics of genetically modified foods and vaccines. The first to speak after Johnson, Kennedy launched into his diagnosis: Americans are “sicker, more depressed, fatter, more infertile at an increasing rate, while crippling our national security, bankrupting our national budget with health-care costs.”