Health advocates emboldened by the “Make America Healthy Again” movement are waging a war on processed foods, which have been linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and heart disease.
Dr. Joel “Gator” Walsh, a pediatrician and author, told The Hill’s sister network NewsNation that a lot of those conditions are becoming increasingly common and manifesting earlier in life.
“I think that the most obvious example would be adult-onset diabetes, type 2 diabetes,” Warsh said. “It’s literally called adult-onset — it wasn’t something you really ever saw in kids, even 40 or 50 years ago, and now we’re seeing it all the time in kids.”
Since the 1970s, consumer advocates have pushed to ban the marketing of sugary, ultra-processed foods to kids. Former first lady Michelle Obama’s 2010 “Let’s Move!” campaign and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2012 large soda ban tried to stem the tide, but obesity rates kept rising throughout the decade.
Vani Hari, author of “The Food Babe” vlog, has a powerful voice inside the MAHA movement and believes “bottom-up change” is coming.
“It starts with moms, and that’s what’s happening, is people are looking at ingredient lists more than ever,” Hari said. “Over 60 percent of Americans now are looking at ingredient lists trying to read the ingredient label.”
Though Hari has been a Democrat, she previously called out former President Obama for what she said was a broken promise: failing to require GMO warning labels. Today, the blogger has the ear of the Health of Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as she battles for higher food safety standards.
“Now, over 60 percent of the food companies in America have voluntarily said that they were going to remove artificial food dyes,” she said. “Huge companies like Kraft Heinz and General Mills and Kellogg’s and Tyson and others have made the commitment,” she said.
Hari warned of what she says is a new push to pull back on state efforts to regulate and investigate these foods.
“There’s a new group called the Americans for Ingredient Transparency, she said. “It sounds very humble and nice, and it sounds like they’re trying to fight for the everyday consumer, but actually they’re trying to take away our right to do state and local food chemical reform, and this is just one organization that’s popped up recently.”
In a statement to NewsNation, Americans for Ingredient Transparency said, “Unfortunately, states are now implementing their own patchwork of contradictory ingredient rules that have caused widespread confusion among consumers.
The group added, “Our goal is to cut through confusion and ensure everyone has access to clear information.”
