Ivanka Trump made a rare public appearance at an annual summit in Arkansas, hosted by the heirs of the Walmart empire, on Thursday.
She has avoided the spotlight since her father took office for his second term, even though she served as a close adviser to President Donald Trump in his first presidential term and in his business ventures.
In her recent appearance, Ivanka Trump advocated for expanding access to fresh produce while giving local farmers a hand.
“So many of the challenges we face today—from rising healthcare costs and chronic disease to food waste and the pressure on small farmers—can be traced to a common root: how we grow, distribute, and access our food," she wrote in a post on X.
Why is Ivanka Trump advocating for food reform?
Trump co-founded Planet Harvest with Melissa Ackerman in 2023 “to help reimagine the food supply chain through private-sector innovation.”
“We’re focused on scalable solutions and whole harvest sourcing that gets fruits and vegetables, including surplus and overlooked crops, from farmers to grocers, food service companies, retail brands, Food-as-Medicine boxes, and emergency feeding programs,” the president’s eldest daughter said.
She said she felt inspired to help the American consumer and producer after spearheading the United States Department of Agriculture’s Farmers to Families Food Box program, a yearlong initiative that launched during the early months of the pandemic in 2020.
The USDA purchased $6 billion in food from local distributors, packed up boxes of fresh produce, milk, dairy, cooked meats and seafood, and distributed them to Americans across the country.
Although Ivanka has stayed away from politics during President Trump’s second term, she engaged in emergency relief efforts in Maui and Los Angeles following their devastating wildfires.
Ivanka’s initiative goes hand-in-hand with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crackdown on processed food and his vision to “Make American Healthy Again.”
Michelle Obama’s legacy on healthy eating
It’s worth noting that former first lady Michelle Obama also adopted a similar goal 15 years ago and started a program called “Let’s Move” to reduce childhood obesity and promote healthy eating in schools and communities. She also championed the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, meant to offer nutritious and subsidized meals for students. President Trump rolled back the initiative in 2018.
Former President Barack Obama also appointed a task force on obesity that developed a national action plan.
The former first lady recently revealed she was surprised by the criticism she received for her healthy-eating program in an appearance on a podcast
“I was trying to be strategic about aligning my agenda with something that was important to the West Wing and I thought, ‘There’s no way that anyone is going to take issue with trying to make school lunches healthier, getting kids more active,’” Obama said on “Not Gonna Lie” with Kylie Kelce, released last month.
“Just trying to make the next generation healthier than ours and, boy, was I wrong, which is really interesting in these times with the current secretary of Health and Human Services, who is now saying some of the same things that I was saying,” she added, referring to Kennedy’s efforts.
Obama said that people accused her of “trying to be the ‘nanny state’” by controlling what children eat. Still, she said, they managed to improve nutrition standards for the first time in half a century.
Although her work in improving children’s nutrition became partisan, those same ideas are now being embraced by the GOP.
What changed? Deseret News’ Jennifer Graham wrote that the Republican Party’s recent emphasis on health can be attributed to “shrewd politics and the growing influence of podcasters, combined with concern about Americans’ declining health span and overall health.”