The Unlikely Alignment of MAHA with Marion Nestle
We find ourselves wondering, as Marion Nestle does, about the unlikely alignment of RFK’s MAHA concept with some of the ideas about food policy she has been advocating for decades. We do not always agree, but we have long admired Nestle’s convictions in taking on problems with food systems and the business model of the food industry.
Our view of RFK Jr. is very different.
How Is This Possible?
In a recent event at Penn State, Nestle told students, academics, and activists:
“He sounds just like me when he talks! How is that possible?
“I think we need a complete change in our food system. Whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to bring us that change, remains to be seen.”
But her diagnosis of the root problem of unhealthy food systems is quite different from anything we hear the new administration espouse. She says:
“The cause of this, I would argue, is a food system that’s focused on profits rather than on public health.”
A Problem of Systems
Early in her career, it became clear to Nestle that rising problems with obesity came from a systems problem – not problematic individual behaviors. In a lengthy profile by the New York Times, she said:
“I never wanted to go to another meeting on childhood obesity and have speaker after speaker say, ‘How are we going to teach moms to feed their kids better?’”
A Whiff of Religiosity
The difference we suspect, which separates MAHA from Marion Nestle, is all about science. Nestle notes that much of popular discourse about nutrition has no foundation of reputable science, but instead has a whiff of religiosity. Much of that whiff is present in the MAHA fervor.
If any progress on reforming food systems comes from the MAHA movement, it may be a product of coincidence more than science. Nonetheless, it is fascinating to hear a famously fast-food-loving president begin complaining about “the industrial food complex.”
So we will be watching what comes from this unlikely alignment very closely.
Click here for free access to the excellent profile of Nestle in the Times and here for more about her recent lecture at Penn State.
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April 8, 2025
April 08, 2025 at 9:00 am, David Brown said:
Excerpt from the NYTimes article. “Dr. Nestle is still trying to make sense of the about-face by the right and how she should respond to it. Mr. Kennedy’s tendency to go against scientific consensus would seem in conflict with her own evidence-based approach.”
Ah yes. Scientific consensus. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2719747/
“The biggest problem in American diets is people eat too much,” says Dr. Nestle…“I don’t care about the details,” she said.
One wonders, why do people eat too much? That can be explained in terms of either habit or compulsion. It is no coincidence that one’s current habits are perfectly designed to yield one’s current results. I suspect most people would be happy to give up bad habits if equally satisfying good habits were to become available.
Removing tongue from cheek, the big problem these days is compulsion or, as Dr. Nestle puts it, food noise. That has to do with how the endocannabinoid system is functioning. https://www.ocl-journal.org/articles/ocl/full_html/2020/01/ocl190046s/ocl190046s.html
Note that the new GLP-1 agonist drugs act on the endocannabinoid system. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5625085/
April 08, 2025 at 9:27 am, John DiTraglia said:
My question is how do you supply us with a free NYT article?
My comment is
“The difference we suspect, which separates MAHA from Marion Nestle, is all about science.”
they’re both about no science. Just saying.
“Portions ballooned. As companies mastered the processing of inexpensive ingredients like corn and soy into high-margin packaged foods, they realized they could maximize their profits by supersizing meals.”
No science, I don’t think. Why wouldn’t they maximize profits if they shrunk the portions?
The evidence that portion size causes obesity is not good.
The only evidence is the prima facia evidence that food is safer and better tasting and more varied and cheaper.
I do need to read more Dr. Nestle though. I hadn’t heard about her before.
Thanks
April 08, 2025 at 10:15 am, Ted said:
John, I subscribe to the Times. For subscribers, the Times grants 10 gift links per month and I use them to share important articles with my readers. WaPo, The Atlantic, and WSJ all do something similar.
Regarding science, I think it’s important to distinguish opinions from facts. Both RFK and Nestle have opinions to which they are entitled. For example, there is plenty of data to document the fact that portion sizes have grown. But there is not data to prove that fries cooked in beef tallow will yield better health than fries cooked in canola oil.