MAHA commission releases report: "Over the past two generations, we have failed to address the alarming rise in childhood chronic disease," reads a new report issued by the president's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, helmed by Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Federal and state policy have sometimes been guided more by corporate profit than the public interest. Many of our leading scientific and medical institutions have grown complacent, defaulting to symptom management rather than harnessing gold-standard science to prevent and reverse root causes."
"The U.S. food and agricultural systems have embraced ultra-processed ingredients and synthetic chemicals," continues the report. "Meanwhile, our healthcare system has over-medicalized children, frequently masking and compounding underlying issues. Coupled with rising screen addiction and sedentary lifestyles, these factors are converging to produce a chronically stressed, sick, and isolated generation. This crisis is undermining national resilience and competitiveness." Though I think some of the specifics cited within the report rely on causal leaps and faulty research, I'm not sure this diagnosis of the problem is really incorrect. Kennedy's team continues, noting that the goal is for "the next ten years [to] see a revolution in living standards and prosperity," during which "we understand how to better manage the increased threats to our children's health that come from industrialization." These are worthy goals, if you can stomach some of the anti-corporate leftism that creeps in throughout.
At times, the MAHA report basically echoes Jonathan Haidt's argument: "Over the past four decades, American children have transitioned from an active, play-based childhood to a sedentary, technology-driven lifestyle, contributing to declines in physical and mental health. Specifically, these declines have been driven by increased screen time, reduced physical activity, and psychosocial stressors like loneliness, chronic stress, and sleep deprivation." The report notes that children and teens are "fail[ing] to meet the 2024 federal guideline of 60 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity"; that daily non-school screen time is extremely high; that loneliness, anxiety, and depression have been skyrocketing; and that ADHD prescriptions have increased drastically (250 percent!) from 2006 to 2016 (ditto with antidepressant and antipsychotic medications). RFK Jr. has a long history of overconfidence in implying or saying that certain medications and vaccines are responsible for specific disorders, but the way he lays it out here is a bit more measured: The standard American childhood has gotten less active, and it looks like more children are suffering both physically and mentally as a result.
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