In the opening pages of his book “Crunchy Cons,” published in 2006, the conservative writer Rod Dreher described leaving his office at National Review in Manhattan and telling an editor that he was going to pick up a box of fruits and vegetables from an organic food co-op. “Ewww, that’s so lefty,” the editor said.
Dreher said that his preference for organic produce was a “left-wing cliche” that put him at odds with his conservative tribe. And it was true at the time.
But some two decades later, it’s conservatives who are preaching against pesticides and processed foods, and posting photos on social media of their homemade granola and sourdough bread. They have effectively wrested healthy food, clean living and fitness as an issue away from Democrats with shocking speed, to the point where a columnist for MSNBC once labeled physical fitness as “central to the far right.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s partnership with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made the slogan “Make America Healthy Again” part of his winning campaign. If confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy stands to be a force in how America talks about health, and many Republicans are applauding his selection, despite his history as a Democrat and some controversial opinions. (The conservative humor website Babylon Bee poked fun at the critics, writing ”Citizens in the most obese, unhealthy country on the face of the planet have expressed concern that new Health Secretary RFK might try to do a few things differently.”)
So how did the GOP become the granola-and-exercise party, practically overnight, despite a leader with a legendary appetite for McDonald’s?
It’s a combination of shrewd politics and the growing influence of podcasters, combined with concern about Americans’ declining health span and overall health — the Pentagon has said that more than three-quarters of young people would not qualify for military service because of their mental or physical health, making health a special concern for the party with the largest share of veterans.
From ‘Let’s Move’ to RFKJ
In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama adopted the goal of reducing childhood obesity within a generation with a program entitled “Let’s Move.” President Barack Obama appointed a national task force on obesity that developed a national action plan. At the time, it was estimated that about 17% of American children ages 2-19 were obese.
The obesity rate for minors is now just under 20%.
Let’s Move promised to increase healthy food options in schools and communities and encourage people to be more physically active. One of the goals was “to add 100 million additional servings of vegetables, fruits, and beans to the marketplace around the country by 2025.” During the same time, however, the government has come under fire for other things on school lunch menus, including Lunchables, which Consumer Reports earlier this year asked to be removed from school cafeterias, citing concerns about sodium, heavy metals and phthalate levels. Additionally, “They’re highly processed, and regularly eating processed meat, a main ingredient in many of these products, has been linked to increased risk of some cancers,” a registered dietician at Consumer Reports said.
At the time of the report, the USDA stood by the product, saying it “doesn’t allow or disallow individual food items,” per NPR, and the maker of Lunchables, Kraft Heinz, said in a statement to NPR, “We are proud of Lunchables and stand by the quality and integrity that goes into making them.”
But earlier this month, Kraft Heinz announced that it is pulling out of its contract with the government to provide Lunchables in schools. What changed?
A pair of health crusaders, Dr. Casey Means and her brother Calley Means, appeared on the podcasts of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Joe Rogan, and reached a wide audience with their message of how the typical American diet is killing Americans. Speaking about Lunchables on the The Tucker Carlson Show in August, Dr. Casey Means described Lunchables as “literally processed flour, processed sugar, processed oil. It’s just these staples of the American ultra-processed food system that are just rotting children’s brains and bodies.”
They went on to talk about other health issues discussed in the Means’s book “Good Energy,” including the overconsumption of seed oils, overprescribing of drugs, the addictive nature of processed foods, farm subsidies, and how medical schools are failing doctors, and ultimately their patients, by not teaching more about nutrition and preventative medicine. The three talked for two and a half hours, and later, Casey Means said that she had 15,000 new subscribers to her newsletter.
Megyn Kelly, meanwhile, has featured Kennedy on her podcast and Sirius XM show and recently said in a conversation with Glenn Greenwald, “Yes, he is very unusual, yes, he has very negative things to say about the FDA. This is why we’re hiring him. This is why we love him.”
Kennedy, like the Means siblings, is a harsh critic of highly processed foods and chemical additives, and recently started a national conversation about the ingredients in Froot Loops, the sugary cereal introduced in 1963.
When Kraft Heinz announced that it was pulling Lunchables from public schools, the company said it was low demand, but it’s hard not to notice that the decision came right after the election. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson’s latest guest is Dr. Mark Hyman, a friend of Kennedy’s, a proponent of using food as medicine, and the author of numerous books on health, including “Food Fix” and the bestselling book he co-authored with megachurch pastor Rick Warren, “The Daniel Plan.” (The first habit of good health is food, the plan says.)
The genesis of MAHA
While it’s unclear who first used the phrase “Make America Healthy Again,” it’s Dr. Nicole Saphier who has the copyright. Her book “Make America Healthy Again” was published in 2020, a few months after Trump left office. A Fox News contributor since 2018, Saphier had an audience that was primed for a book with this title, although she said in an interview that the contents should not be political.
“I’m a fulltime physician and diagnose cancer on a daily basis. And I find every single day that it takes me telling someone that they have cancer to make them want to start living a healthy life. And I just think to myself, wouldn’t it be great, if I could instill in people the knowledge to get them to a healthier place before the cancer starts,” said Saphier, a radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Monmouth.
Saphier wants to reduce the incidence of disease and illness that is preventable, and in doing so, also reduce the costs of healthcare for people whose illnesses were not preventable.
Despite a century of medical process, heart disease and cancer remain the leading causes of death, and America spent more than $4 trillion dollars on health care in 2022. “If you look at the numbers, up to 80% of heart disease could be prevented or lessened through just dietary and exercise changes. When it comes to cancer, up to 50% could be prevented if we all lived a little bit healthier,” Saphier said.
But until recently, most of the conversation about health in the politics was about health insurance, not how to improve health outcomes. That’s one reason that Saphier was a critic of the Affordable Care Act, which she says was “essentially putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”
“The impetus behind it sounded great — make sure everyone has access to health care and make sure their preexisting conditions were covered. OK, that sounds great, but if we don’t rein in our spending on chronic illness, it doesn’t matter if you want socialized healthcare or fully privatized healthcare, nothing is going to work as long as we are spending an enormous amount on preventable illness.”
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s enlarged platform through the Trump campaign, “Make America Healthy Again” — shortened to MAHA — became a buzz phrase, and she’s fine with that — she addressed many of the things Kennedy talks about in her book. And, having had several conversations with Trump, she believes the president-elect is serious about making a difference, his affection for McDonald’s notwithstanding.
“He wants to leave his legacy; I think anybody running for president wants to a legacy. And this (issue) is one that has not been tapped into” by campaigns,” Saphier said. “Obama talked a lot about healthcare, but again, that’s access to insurance. That’s not a path to making people healthy again. This is the first time I’ve heard people talk (during an election) about what are we going to do to make people healthy again.
A bipartisan issue?
There is also a possibility that the quest to make America healthy again could bring Americans together again.
On X recently, Kennedy thanked New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, for speaking out about problems with the American food supply. “We’re prioritizing corporations feeding us unhealthy products instead of family farmers growing fresh, healthy foods - and we let too many dangerous chemicals flood our food system. We all must come together to build a system that works for all,” Booker said on X.
And Casey Means recently got Bill Maher’s audience to applaud Kennedy’s selection as the leader of Health and Human Services.
“To say make America healthy again, to say make America great again, should not be political. It should just be a goal,” Saphier said.
Dreher, who was a crunchy conservative when crunchy conservatives weren’t mainstream, says the same thing, remembering how some Republicans criticized the Obamas for their health initiatives.
“I was not a fan of the Obamas, but why on earth is it wrong or anti-conservative to want to eat healthy food? ... In the end though, to care about our bodies, to treat our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit is a godly act and I would say even a conservative act. To eat good food, healthy food is to show respect for our bodies.”
One fascinating thing that has happened since I wrote ‘Crunchy Cons,’ published in 2006 — back then, raw milk was treated as something left-wingers liked. Now, it is so coded to the right. Breastfeeding was a left-wing thing, and now I’m seeing articles in Salon and Slate and these liberal magazines criticizing breastfeeding,” Dreher said. “It’s just crazy how these things that are just natural to human life become politicized. It ought to be normal to want to eat healthier food.”
Contributing: Mariya Manzhos.