Cliff Notes for MAHA Report
Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #142 [vol6, 6.1]
The Wednesday Night Supper Volunteer Crew came to my house this week to celebrate a year of making healthier choices for our church. Notably, that we started changing the food culture, making church suppers from scratch. Read here some of the changes.
After celebratory supper I briefly shared some of the Make America Healthy Again Assessment Report.
Until this year, I’ve never known or even cared who the Secretary of Health and Human Services was. I’m all in on watching RFK, Jr. get passionate about making our children healthy again.
The 68 page report can be read in its entirety here. It’s quite readable, maybe written on middle school level, yet complete with 522 footnotes from scientific studies. The tone is somber (something must change!) and simultaneously glimpses of hope shine through the darkness (we are Americans and we thrive at solving problems with out of the box solutions!)
I’m not going to recap all 68 pages. I did, however, find myself exclaiming aloud frequently, “YES! Finally!!"
High Level Overview of the Report
We would all agree that America is not healthy. Our children are sicker than we were. Today 40% of children have at least one chronic health condition. 77% of young Americans are ineligible for military service!
1 in 5 children is obese – that’s 270% increase since 1970s.
The report points to 4 potential drivers behind the rise in childhood chronic disease:
Poor diet
Chemicals in environment (what goes on the skin!)
Lack of physical activity, and chronic stress (includes screens and sleep deprivation)
Overmedicalization
What Stood Out to Me
page 3 is a list of commission members from a wide swath of 14 governmental agencies to include: Agriculture, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, EPA, FDA and NIH. I am hopeful with such broad interests represented, change is possible.
It seems a great emphasis of the report points to the problem of our food system and ultra-processed food.
Farmers are praised as the backbone of America, the most innovative and productive in the world. We are the largest food exporter.
The writers criticize the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (shapes food standards for SNAP, school lunches, military, prisons, etc.) Particularly:
it’s reductionist in recommendations (“reduce saturated fat” or “limit sodium”) instead of focusing on minimizing ultra-processed foods [«I hear this all the time…the same people who tell me that “My doctor says I need to lower my sodium…” also eat fast food multiple times a week.»
treating all calories similarly, rather than distinguishing between nutrient-dense foods and ultra-processed products.
Current guidelines remain largely agnostic to how foods are produced or processed: little distinction between industrially processed food and home-cooked foods. For instance, both a cup of whole-grain ready to eat fortified breakfast cereal from a box and a cup of oatmeal with fruit count as “whole grain servings” but do not weigh in on differences in processing.
The final sentence of the report was especially encouraging:
We invite all of America, especially the private sector and academia, to be a part of the solution. — final sentence of the MAHA Report
What’s driving chronic disease in children?
For the sake of brevity and since I write mostly about food here — I’m zeroing in on the poor diet aspect of the report.
Much of the first driver of poor health, poor diet, is blamed on ultra-processed food which is rampant in our stores and culture.
Diet is lacking fruit, vegetables and single source protein (like meat that isn’t ready to be consumed like lunch meat).
Ultra-Processed Food is defined as manufactured food with multiple physical and chemical processing steps and contain ingredients not commonly found in home kitchens….
These ready to consume products are formulated for shelf life and/or palatability – typically:
High in added sugars and refined grains
Chemical additives, colors and man-made saturated fats
Low in fiber and essential nutrients
Excessive consumption of these foods leads to depletion of essential micro nutrients and insufficient fiber.
70% of an American child’s calories today comes from ultra processed food. This is an increase from zero 100 years ago.
In 1960’s most food was cooked at home using whole ingredients.
Today, 90% of medical costs are tied to chronic conditions, many of which are tied to diet.
Start to Notice
Start to notice what is in your grocery cart. Will your food expire in a week? Will the majority of the food in your cart go bad eventually? (…like year+ old tortillas I found in my pantry without mold last week)
»How much shelf-stable, high sugar, low fiber food is in the cart? Is the majority of your food dollars spent on shelf-stable packaged “food”?
»How many calories do you drink? Specifically sugary drinks like sodas or specialty coffees?
The great theologian Michael Jackson sang, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror.” It starts in my grocery cart. Here are 17 ideas I suggest. We vote three times a day with our fork.
Life is hard; food doesn’t have to be.
Julie
PS - Shout out to Hilary and Chuck at the School of Lunch Training Academy who have been a huge source of encouragement. Not just to me in the efforts to change the food culture at my church but they are making huge differences in homes and schools nationwide. If you want to grow in your understanding of how to traditionally prepare food —for yourself or a crowd— I highly recommend their training. Details about my experience at the training here. Their life mission is to train leaders to joyfully disrupt chronic disease with food one plate at a time. Man, they do an excellent job.
Super informative—thanks for distilling this and making it easier to grasp.