The United States’ obesity rate has dropped for the first time in 50 years under President Donald Trump’s administration, Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced this week. “Since President Trump came into office, obesity rates in this country have dropped by 2.5 percent,” Kennedy announced during an event in Charlotte. “That’s the first drop in 50 years.” Kennedy said that drop will have “significant impacts on health care costs in this country,” noting that obesity drives the vast majority of chronic disease. “Forty-eight cents out of every dollar that you pay to the federal government in taxes is now going to treat for health care, and about 90 percent of that is spent on treating chronic disease,” Kennedy said, noting that when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was president, the nation did not spend any money on chronic disease and had the status as the healthiest country in the world. That is not the case present-day, as the U.S. has the “highest chronic disease burden,” he said, offering greater perspective. “When my uncle was president, three percent of children were obese. Now it’s 20 percent… 77 percent of our kids cannot qualify for military service because of chronic disease, mainly obesity. Kennedy also said that obesity rates shot up in the U.S. because of ultra-processed foods and misinformation about proper nutrition... “It’s not because they suddenly became indolent or lazy or hungry. It’s because they were being mass poisoned by ultra-processed foods, and because of the food pyramid and the dietary guidelines, we were directed away from protein, away from healthy foods,” Kennedy observed. When I was a kid, a typical pediatrician would see one case of type two diabetes over a 40 or 50 year career. Today 38 percent of American teens are diabetic or pre diabetic,” he said, deeming it a “terrible crisis.” Kennedy’s announcement comes months after the Trump administration unveiled a new, inverted food pyramid encouraging Americans to eat “real food” and prioritize healthy fats, protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Creators of the iconic candy brand M&M’s have been working to remove artificial dyes, but sweet lovers may not find the colors blue and brown in the upgraded Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) version. The Mars brand has been working to reinvent the candy without artificial dyes as part of President Donald Trump’s MAHA agenda, but the company has had trouble with the colors blue and brown, the New York Post reported Friday. Some natural food dyes listed were beet juice and powder, beta-carotene, butterfly pea flower extract, fruit juice, riboflavin, saffron, spirulina extract, turmeric, and vegetable juice. The website noted there were several main health concerns when it came to artificial dyes that included hyperactivity and neurobehavioral problems in children, along with the general risk of developing cancer. In July, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said almost 35 percent of the U.S. food industry committed to removing artificial dyes from products, Breitbart News reported. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken a historic step toward making the nation’s children healthier by restoring the Presidential Fitness Test. The original test dates to the 1960s under his uncle, President John F. Kennedy... The most significant completed initiative is the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, released on January 7, 2026, by HHS and USDA. The guidelines establish the nutritional standards for SNAP, school meals, and other federal nutrition programs. They advise against consuming highly processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, state that no amount of added sugar or non-nutritive sweeteners belongs in a healthy diet, and shift away from the previous emphasis on limiting saturated fat. On food dyes, the FDA banned Red No. 3 under a Biden-era rule finalized in January 2025 over cancer findings in lab rats...The FDA also moved to revoke authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B. Removal of the six remaining synthetic dyes rests on a voluntary industry phase-out. USDA has approved waivers in 23 states allowing restrictions on SNAP purchases of items such as soda and candy... On vaccine policy, Kennedy dismissed all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June 2025 and replaced them with new appointees. In January 2026, CDC announced a revised childhood schedule dropping universal recommendations for flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some meningitis, and RSV vaccines, limiting them to high-risk groups, while HHS canceled nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine research funding. HHS announced a restructuring on March 27, 2025, consolidating 28 divisions into 15 and cutting the workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees. On medical education, Kennedy sent a letter to medical schools in January 2026 urging a minimum of 40 hours of nutrition education, built on 71 competencies drawn from a 2024 JAMA Network Open proposal. As of June 8, 2026, 73 of roughly 160 U.S. medical schools had signed the pledge. On drug pricing, President Trump signed Executive Order 14297 on May 12, 2025, directing federal agencies to align U.S. drug prices with those in comparable wealthy nations. The initiative is primarily driven by the White House and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz rather than by Kennedy directly... During his short tenure, RFK Jr. has done so much for the American people. However, he continues to be vilified in the press. His recommendation that the vaccine schedule should be reviewed and that many vaccines should be made voluntary has even been equated with hating children or wanting people to die. Publications such as The Conversation and The Washington Post have been consistently critical, using terms such as “undermining vaccine science,” “endangering health,” and “spreading disinformation.” Democrats have also pushed back against removing sugar and unhealthy foods from SNAP, arguing that doing so violates people’s rights. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/07/rfk-jr-checkup-many-things-secretary-has-done/ It’s no longer a secret that most of the food Americans eat is detrimental to their health. From chemical pesticides and GMOs to artificial additives, preservatives, and dyes, much of the common foods available today are loaded with junk known to cause health issues — even serious ones, like cancer and disease. Few, however, know that Big Food is largely owned by tobacco companies. On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey sits down with Ashley and Patrick Sullivan, the creators of the documentary “Breaking Big Food,” which pulls the curtain back on how the tobacco industry hijacked our food system and sparked a major health crisis. “In 1985, R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes, purchased Nabisco for about $5 billion. In 1988, Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, purchased Kraft Foods for about $13 billion,” Patrick explains, noting that “these are just two of the examples of Big Tobacco buying up” big name food companies. “By the 1990s, Big Tobacco actually controlled about 40% of the food supply in America,” he adds. “[Tobacco companies] saw number one, the industry that they were in was going down in flames and maybe saw an opportunity in the food industry to go in and say, ‘We are the addiction people, let's figure out how to apply what we know to processed foods,”’ she says. “The tobacco scientists became food scientists, and they began studying how do we tickle the pleasure centers of the brain with potato chips and candy and sodas, and they found this sort of perfect mixture of fat, salt, and sweet that makes it so no one can eat just one,” he explains. They also found ways to save money by using preservatives to expand the shelf life of food products and making cost-effective ingredient swaps, like “switching from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.” To hear more of this fascinating interview about how America’s food system became poisoned, watch the episode above [at the link]. https://www.theblaze.com/shows/relatable/big-food-poisoning-americans-have-no-idea-dark-reason-why 
RFK Jr.: Obesity Rates Have Dropped for First Time in 50 Years:
MAHA: M&M’s Maker Removes Artificial Dyes, Ditches Blue and Brown Candies to Go All Natural:
The RFK Jr. Checkup: The Many Things the Secretary Has Done to Make America Healthy Again: