Make America Healthy Again: Beyond Politics, Toward Prevention

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Make America Healthy Again: Beyond Politics, Toward Prevention

September 10, 2025

New children's health strategy is an opening for communicators, health systems and innovators to shift the conversation from treating sickness to stopping illness.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released the long-awaited Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, part of the HHS Secretary's broader Make America Healthy Again agenda. The document outlines some 120 actions the administration says will refocus government and the private sector on the roots of chronic disease in children.

Political crossfire erupted within moments of the rollout, which is expected in today's partisan climate. That boxing match should not overshadow the real story, which is the scale of the chronic disease crisis and whether plan elements can move the nation toward prevention.

The country's health indicators demand attention. Some 38.4 million people in the United States have diabetes and an estimated 97.6 million adults (the majority, unknowingly) live with prediabetes. Adult obesity is now roughly four in 10, and in certain states, one in three adults are dangerously overweight. Noncommunicable illnesses continue to drive most deaths, with heart disease and cancer firmly entrenched as the top two causes. These are not abstract numbers; they shape school attendance, family income, workforce readiness and national competitiveness.

Context and continuity

Federal health blueprints are not new. Healthy People has framed national priorities for decades, pushing stakeholders to measure progress rather than intentions. The new strategy sits in that lineage and arrives after a summer of intense scrutiny about an earlier MAHA assessment's citation problems. The debate over that episode matters because public trust is the oxygen of prevention campaigns and adherence. Credibility will rest on whether the new steps convert into policy and are operationalized, with clear milestones and validation from independent science.

The strategy centers on prevention. HHS highlights school meals, food labeling and ingredients, definitions for ultra-processed foods, attention to environmental exposures, and school-based activity and mental health supports. It also signals clamps on certain advertising practices, including pharmaceutical promotions, and promises cross-agency coordination to put "gold-standard science" at the center. For communicators and ecosystem leaders, that is a framework the public understands: better food, safer environments, stronger minds, fewer avoidable illnesses.

What the strategy gets right and what it sidesteps

There is real value in naming the drivers of chronic disease and insisting that food policy, environmental health and behavioral health are health policy. That clarity can galvanize action across schools, clinics, payers and community groups. The report calls for visible steps families will notice, such as improving school nutrition and exploring front-of-package labeling, while directing research toward long-term questions about chemicals and metabolic health.

Yet meaningful gaps remain. The strategy leans heavily on voluntary industry cooperation, including around marketing to children, while avoiding tougher moves on pesticides and chemical regulation called for by public-health advocates. It revisits vaccine oversight in ways that have already drawn understandable concern from mainstream pediatric and medical leaders. It mentions behavioral health access, addressing workforce shortages that keep families on waiting lists. There is little way to enforce timelines or metrics. These gaps are not trivial; they will shape whether the strategy becomes a prevention agenda tied to outcomes.

A national strategy has to meet the public where it is. Many families are struggling to navigate contradictory messages about food, fitness and mental health while coping with economic pressure. When government documents are criticized for citation errors, as with the earlier MAHA assessment, skepticism grows and good ideas are lost in the noise. A credible, non-defensive prevention push must speak plainly, source carefully and invite public scrutiny.

"Robust public debate about health policy is essential to Americans' well-being and civic flourishing," notes John Whyte, MD, MPH, CEO of the American Medical Association, in a joint statement with AMA Board Chair David Aizuss, MD, to the Wall Street Journal in August.

That is the right standard. Vigorous debate improves the work, provided it focuses on people's health outcomes rather than politics.

An invitation to communication leaders

The HHS strategy creates room for communicators, health systems and innovators to engage. Prevention will not advance by regulation alone. It advances when people believe the message, see benefit and can act on it with conviction, regardless of political perspective. It will only advance when government, NGOs and industry work together.

For communicators, the first responsibility is to assess, reframe and apply-public health conversations often concern costs and political sway. Right now, the nation's sickness or health trajectory will change only when disease prevention becomes the shared central focus. That means telling local, specific stories: a school district that replaced sugar-sweetened beverages and invested in healthy lunches; a community clinic that screens for prediabetes and pairs families with culturally relevant nutrition support; an employer coalition that rewards health improvement, not just benefit enrollment. Each narrative should connect the dots between better choices, less disease and healthier communities. Evidence belongs in these stories, and so does inclusion and respect.

Communicators must translate complex science into everyday language without oversimplifying it. The MAHA strategy discusses ultra-processed foods, additives and environmental exposures. Those terms need pictures, examples, and practical examples. Plain-spoken guides, short TikTok-like videos and community partnerships turn policy into dinner-time discussion. Avoid jargon that confuses or divides. Focus on the "why" and the "how," and credit third-party partners so the message does not feel imposed from Washington or big business.

Communicators can set a higher bar by linking claims to primary sources and inviting independent experts into public conversations by hosting forums with pediatricians and school nurses who are trusted in their neighborhoods. Acknowledge uncertainty when it exists. The audience does not demand perfection; it demands collaboration.

Health systems and innovators often measure success by admissions, readmissions, procedures, product sales and website downloads. Communicators add to the scoreboard by celebrating reductions in HbA1c across a patient panel, fewer asthma attacks after a housing intervention and higher fitness scores after a school activity program.

Chronic disease is not a single-agency problem or a Beltway-alone issue. Food retailers, restaurant chains, mall developers and manufacturers can be partners in health when engaged pragmatically and acknowledging their business objectives and stakeholder commitments.

The strategy's emphasis on voluntary alignment will only work if it is accompanied by public accountability and market engagement. Communications teams from major health professional associations - from the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association to the American Medical Association - can broker specific and time-bound commitments, then report progress in ways consumers understand. A pledge to improve school meals is abstract; publishing ingredient changes and student acceptance rates turns it into a community achievement.

Finally, keep returning to what's at stake. Diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease already define far too many American lives. Prevention is not a luxury or a lecture about personal responsibility. It is the fastest route to a healthier labor force, a resilient economy and more time with the people we love. As the Bipartisan Policy Center noted earlier in the year, making higher life expectancy a national priority should be common ground. "Making America Healthy Again brings attention to at least one issue we should all agree on: addressing the decline in Americans' life expectancy."

The MAHA strategy is imperfect. As an important step forward, it acknowledges that the nation's children deserve a health system centered on prevention, safer foods, healthier environments and accessible mental health support. Communicators can turn that acknowledgment into action by focusing on solutions families can use today and insisting on measurable progress.

Our nation spends so much on care that it should invest in creativity to keep people well. The new HHS report gives communicators an invitation and a platform to lead that shift. The task is to turn policy text into community action with stories people trust and steps they can take. If we do that with clarity and humility, the numbers that define today's chronic disease burden can begin to move in the right direction. Communications is part of the care solution.

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POSTED BY: Gil Bashe