The new movement to “Make America Healthy Again” is incredibly popular.
According to a recent YouGov poll released last week, Americans were three times as likely to hold a favorable opinion of the MAHA movement than they were to hold an either “very” or “somewhat unfavorable” perspective. Branding aside, Americans overwhelmingly favor the major pillars of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposals to reform the food industry as secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) even as opinions of Kennedy himself were profoundly polarized.
Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats were united in support of “requiring nutrition education in federally funded medical schools, banning certain food additives, funding research into alternative and holistic approaches to health, increasing restrictions on the use of pesticides in agriculture, and banning processed foods from public school lunches,” according to the poll.
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Out of the 1,064 adults surveyed online between Nov. 19-20, respondents were most united on rules to prioritize nutritional education in medical schools, with nearly 8 in 10 who said they supported the proposal. However, as outlined in my new book Fat And Unhappy: How “Body Positivity” Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself), U.S. medical programs are already failing to meet the minimum standards for nutrition classes set by the National Academy of Sciences. Just 27 percent of medical schools met the academy’s recommendation of a 25-hour minimum embedded in curriculums, according to a 2010 survey.
Exactly what students are taught about nutrition in medical school meanwhile remains controversial as the public health establishment still promotes the low-fat diet as conventional wisdom. Kennedy, on the other hand, has rightfully condemned the low-fat dogma promoted by the food industry, though the YouGov survey did not go into details about how the potential new HHS secretary might reform nutrition curriculums in higher education.
Americans from both parties interviewed by YouGov also support Kennedy’s endorsement for legalizing marijuana, with 58 percent of U.S. adults claiming to either “strongly support” or “somewhat support” the idea. Respondents were less receptive to the legalization of psychedelic drugs for therapeutic purposes, restrictions on GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic for weight loss, the removal of fluoride from public utilities, and lifted restrictions on raw milk. Republicans and Democrats both agreed however on 6 out of the 10 proposals presented to survey participants.
But while many of Kennedy’s plans enjoy broad bipartisan agreement, views of Kennedy himself were sharply divided.
“Far more Republicans now have positive views of Kennedy (+63) than did last year, while most Democrats now say they dislike him (-41),” YouGov reported.
Kennedy still faces an uphill confirmation battle among senators on the Finance Committee who have raked in nearly $7 million from the pharmaceutical industry over the past half decade, according to a Federalist analysis.
If confirmed, one of Kennedy’s first battles is likely to be President Joe Biden’s late effort to implement a $35 billion subsidy for the pharmaceutical industry’s lucrative new weight loss drugs. Last month, the Biden administration’s HHS unveiled a proposal to cover popular diabetes medications for weight loss under federal insurance programs, of which Kennedy has been a consistent skeptic.
