If there is one universal treatment that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s Make America Healthy Again sees for all of the country\u2019s medical problems, it\u2019s food.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>: \u201cFood is medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n And this month\u2019s release of new dietary guidelines<\/a> for the country portrayed better eating as the cure to America\u2019s chronic disease crisis. \u201cMy message is clear: Eat real food,\u201d Kennedy said<\/a> when announcing his new inverted food pyramid.<\/p>\n It is a message that resonates \u2014 and for good reason. Many chronic health problems, from hypertension to diabetes, can be the consequences of a poor diet<\/a>. Ultra-processed foods have been the target of criticism not just from Kennedy but a wide range of medical<\/a> and public health groups<\/a> in the past few years.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a major problem with Kennedy\u2019s vision: Simply insisting that people \u201ceat real food\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s part of the whole MAHA movement to promote individual responsibility. That\u2019s the constant mantra. Do your own research and make your own personal decision about how you feel about these things, irrespective of the science,\u201d said Marion Nestle, a long-time nutrition policy researcher at New York University. \u201cBut we know from decades, and decades, and decades of research that individual responsibility is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n The hidden meaning in RFK Jr.\u2019s \u201cfood is medicine\u201d message<\/p>\n Even though doctors and nutritionists have been clear about the negative impacts of consuming too much ultra-processed foods, Kennedy\u2019s were the first federal guidelines to discourage eating them. He gets credit for this.<\/p>\n But the guidelines themselves are still a bit wacky<\/a>. They overemphasize protein based on the latest nutrition science, set unrealistic expectations around a \u201czero sugar\u201d diet for kids, and endorse certain foods \u2014 specifically beef tallow \u2014 that continue to befuddle even the nutrition experts who largely agree with the recommendations.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Good Medicine newsletter<\/p>\n Our political wellness landscape has shifted: new leaders, shady science, contradictory advice, broken trust, and overwhelming systems. How is anyone supposed to make sense of it all? Vox\u2019s senior correspondent Dylan Scott<\/a> has been on the health beat for more than a decade, and every week, he\u2019ll wade into sticky debates, answer fair questions, and contextualize what\u2019s happening in American health care policy. Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n By adopting fairly conventional dietary advice, Kennedy has attracted widespread support for his food agenda. I spoke with a number of nutrition experts who, while uncomfortable with Kennedy\u2019s actions on, for example, vaccines, still feel his tenure represents an opportunity to improve people\u2019s eating habits and, as Kennedy himself would say, to address the underlying issues driving up rates of diabetes, hypertension, and more.<\/p>\n Ideally, they told me, we could have the best of both worlds: a healthy eating agenda that everyone from Kennedy and MAHA to the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics could get on board with, while embracing the best public health practices that have proven their value over the last half century.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a very real risk here, too.<\/p>\n The problem with labeling food as medicine, as Kennedy does, is it could be construed as meaning food instead of medicine. And that indeed is his administration\u2019s implied message, as they cast doubt on vaccines<\/a>, antidepressants<\/a>, and even Tylenol<\/a>: Embrace nutrient-rich foods, but avoid pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you use diet to manage all clinical conditions without needing traditional pharma treatments? I think obviously the answer is no,\u201d said Seth Berkowitz, a University of North Carolina doctor who has developed \u201cfood is medicine\u201d programs. \u201cIt would be problematic to say, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t need to take X, Y, Z, I\u2019m gonna do everything through diet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n This is already happening. Kennedy embraced<\/a> vitamin A and cod liver oil over vaccines during last year\u2019s measles outbreak in Texas. And it is in line with the more outlandish wellness trends you will find on social media, like people eating activated charcoal<\/a> in the hopes they will purge their body of toxins, that have taken the \u201cfood is medicine\u201d concept to illogical extremes.<\/p>\n What a real \u201cfood is medicine\u201d strategy would look like<\/p>\n Under Kennedy\u2019s conception of \u201cfood as medicine,\u201d it\u2019s on you<\/a>, the individual, to put that practice into action.<\/p>\n The problem is the prescription for better eating has been tried \u2014 and has failed.<\/p>\n