The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission has unveiled the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, a comprehensive plan featuring over 120 initiatives aimed at reversing the rise in childhood chronic diseases in the United States. Chaired by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the strategy emphasizes restoring scientific integrity, realigning incentives, increasing public awareness, and fostering private-sector collaboration.
Key components of the strategy include:
- Restoring Science and Research: Expanding research through NIH and other agencies focused on chronic disease prevention, nutrition, metabolic health, environmental exposures, autism, gut microbiome, precision agriculture, rural and tribal health, vaccine injury, and mental health.
- Historic Executive Actions: Reforming dietary guidelines, defining ultra-processed foods, improving food labeling, tightening safety standards for infant formula, removing harmful chemicals from the food supply, enhancing oversight of prescription drug advertising, improving food quality in schools, hospitals, and veterans’ facilities, and updating Medicaid quality metrics to focus on health outcomes.
- Process Reform and Deregulation: Simplifying organic certification, supporting farm-to-school programs and direct-to-consumer sales, restoring whole milk in schools, backing mobile grocery and processing units, modernizing FDA drug and device approvals, and accelerating EPA approvals for innovative agricultural products.
- Public Awareness and Education: Launching school-based nutrition and fitness campaigns, Surgeon General initiatives to reduce screen time, prioritizing pediatric mental health, and expanding access to reliable nutrition and health information for parents.
- Private Sector Collaboration: Promoting healthier meal options in restaurants, encouraging soil health and land stewardship efforts, backing community-led initiatives, and scaling innovative solutions to tackle chronic disease root causes.
Leaders from multiple federal agencies, including USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, and others, highlighted the strategy’s historic scope and collaborative approach to improving children’s health outcomes and securing a healthier future for American families.
