Healthcare

Trump Admin Still Has Long Way To Go To Make America Healthy Again, Analysts Say

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President Donald Trump’s administration may still have a lot left to accomplish to enact its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, according to analysts.

Recent polling shows that many U.S. voters, including those who backed Trump in 2024, believe the administration has not done enough to actually make the country healthy again. On top of this, the MAHA movement has largely begun to lose ground within the Trump camp, according to Abby McCloskey, a Republican policy adviser.

“MAHA is a significant opportunity for Republicans to gain ground on healthcare,” McCloskey told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Most parents agree with many of its underlying goals, including concern about children’s increasing chronic health conditions, ultra-processed food, and overreliance on screens. But it’s my sense that the movement has lost ground within the Trump administration since the release of the MAHA report last year. President Trump barely mentioned healthcare in [his] State of the Union [address].”

The administration published the report in May 2025 in an effort to “begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root causes—not just its symptoms.”

“The administration recently moved to protect pesticides, which were called out as a concern in the MAHA report,” she continued. “[Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary] Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s focus on vaccines runs counter to what most parents are concerned about and has resulted in an increase in diseases like children’s measles.”

McCloskey added that children’s health is still an “enormous problem” across the nation.

“[The] MAHA [movement] was right to group disparate issues impacting children’s health together and draw attention to them,” she said. “But the movement has to be about more than social media shorts and rallies. To impact lasting change, there has to be a broader coalition in Washington that focuses on the big issues that most parents care about.”

White House spokesman Kush Desai told the DCNF in a Wednesday statement that Trump “remains committed to delivering on his pledge to Make America Healthy Again.”

“The Administration has already secured key victories for the MAHA Agenda – from overhauling the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to axing artificial ingredients in our food supply – and continues to work around the clock to secure more wins for the American people,” he added.

The administration has made some significant strides to make America healthier, such as challenging the “conventional wisdom” around Americans’ “eating habits and overall health,” according to S.T. Karnick, senior fellow and executive editor of health care news at The Heartland Institute.

“What the American people have needed for many years is greater knowledge about many different health factors,” Karnick told the DCNF. “Beginning in the 1950s, the food production industry and researchers became committed to ever-increasing production while downplaying possible health effects of food additives, preservatives, plant and animal breeding choices based on transportation and storage factors, excessive intake of sugar and other high-calorie foods, and other such potential problems.”

“The Trump administration has begun to push back against the conventional wisdom and ask questions about the health effects of farming methods, advertising, government programs, government food price manipulation, changes in food storage and preservation and other factors affecting people’s eating habits and overall health,” he continued. “That is a much-needed change.”

Still, Karnick emphasized there are “many opportunities” remaining for Trump’s administration to enact more major health care reforms.

“The administration is only at the start of that process and has many opportunities for reform ahead of it,” he explained. “Preventing people from using SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits to purchase obviously unhealthy snacks is a good policy, as that is something the government should never have allowed in the first place. Revoking outdated food standards is another long-overdue achievement the administration has initiated.”

Karnick added that the administration “advising against highly processed foods may be a good idea, but that is a matter best handled by medical organizations and scientists, where competition for people’s trust encourages the pursuit of ever-greater knowledge.”

HHS has asserted that it is continuing to “advance” Trump and Kennedy’s “commitment to end the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”

Trump signed an executive order in February aiming to expand the production of the pesticide glyphosate in the U.S., drawing major pushback from some supporters of the MAHA movement.

Environmental Working Group president and co-founder Ken Cook said in a February statement in response to the order that “if anyone still wondered whether ‘Make America Healthy Again’ was a genuine commitment to protecting public health or a scam concocted by President Trump and RFK Jr. to rally health-conscious voters in 2024, today’s decision answers that question.”

Moreover, some health advocates have promoted food is medicine initiatives as a potential method for preventing and managing chronic diseases in the U.S., Health Affairs reported in November 2025. These efforts can provide patients with nutrition support via produce prescriptions, medically tailored meals or healthy grocery programs, according to The Rockefeller Foundation.

“I definitely think that food is medicine will be more of a highlight here [in the MAHA movement],” Jennifer Galardi, senior policy analyst for restoring American wellness at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “We have already seen the food guidelines change and the food pyramid. And one of the key components, I think, of it, its success has been messaging. You know, there’s great data around food and how it helps heal and nurture our bodies, but really, people need to be encouraged.”

When asked if the Trump administration has any plans to expand food is medicine initiatives across the nation, an HHS spokesperson told the DCNF in part of a statement on Tuesday that Kennedy has “stated that diet and nutrition are central to health and the prevention of chronic disease,” adding “in line with this focus, CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] recently issued new guidance for hospitals to strengthen patient nutrition standards.”

In January, the Trump administration released new dietary guidelines which “call for prioritizing high-quality protein, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and avoiding highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates,” according to an HHS fact sheet. The president also established a MAHA commission in February 2025 in an effort to address the nation’s “childhood chronic disease crisis.”

Many of the administration’s top messengers in the MAHA movement — including Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya  — are still not widely known to a lot of Americans, Politico reported in March.

Additionally, surging U.S. health care costs are expected to be a huge influence on voters’ decisions in November’s midterms, several analysts previously told the DCNF. A Gallup survey released on March 31 shows that medical care is the top domestic concern among Americans, with 61% of respondents saying they feel greatly concerned about health care access and affordability.

Democratic Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood told reporters during a recent call that she thinks Republicans are “no longer focusing on the core tenets of that Make America Healthy Again platform in order to continue to please Donald Trump, and also to advance their policy agenda,” Politico reported on March 30.