The MAHA Commission Is Just Nibbling Around The Edges of America’s Real Health Problem
The “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission, established in February 2025, has highlighted poor diet, sedentary lifestyles, and excessive medical intervention as root causes of childhood chronic disease. Its initial concrete actions include supporting state-level bans on harmful food dyes (West Virginia) and fluoride (Utah). Proposed federal actions like phasing out petroleum-based food dyes nationally and restricting SNAP benefits for junk food are largely recommendations. These efforts, however, appear profoundly misguided, failing to directly address the most significant cause of modern chronic disease: caloric imbalance.
Most illnesses tied to diet stem from excessive caloric intake compared to what is expended, leading directly to overweight and obesity. This fundamental issue is neglected when public health efforts divert attention to peripheral issues like food dyes or attempts to control specific food assistance programs.
prevalence directly correlates with the rising incidence of these illnesses, placing an immense burden on healthcare systems.
The economic impact is staggering: in 2016, diseases directly caused by obesity accounted for $480.7 billion in direct healthcare costs and $1.24 trillion in indirect costs, totaling $1.72 trillion. Projections indicate this figure could reach $42 trillion between 2016 and 2030 in the U.S. if trends continue. Adults with obesity incur approximately $2,505 more in annual medical costs compared to those with a healthy weight. For privately insured individuals, those with an obesity or overweight diagnosis incurred an average of $12,588 in total annual health costs in 2021, more than double the $4,699 for those without such diagnoses.
Against this backdrop, the attention frequently given to issues like food dyes appears strikingly misplaced. While legitimate concerns about behavioral effects of certain artificial food colorings exist for a small, susceptible group, elevating this issue to the forefront of a national health crisis overwhelmingly defined by obesity fundamentally misunderstands the problem’s scale. The caloric content of food dyes is negligible, and their direct contribution to weight gain or metabolic dysfunction is scientifically unsupported. Focusing on these additives, while perhaps an easier political target, diverts attention and resources from addressing widespread caloric surplus.
Furthermore, governmental interventions targeting specific food programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or school lunch initiatives, often fail to meaningfully address the underlying caloric imbalance. Arguments for restricting certain food types within SNAP, or mandating specific nutritional guidelines for school lunches, often become entangled in debates over individual choice and food access.
More critically, their effect on the overarching problem of caloric surplus is often marginal. The fundamental issue is not whether a food is “good” or “bad” in isolation, but whether the total quantity of absorbed calories, from all sources, aligns with an individual’s energy needs. These interventions, while addressing specific components, often fail to address broader behavioral patterns of overconsumption and under-activity that drive the obesity epidemic.
The fundamental truth is that weight gain and the subsequent development of nutrition-related illnesses are overwhelmingly governed by the principle of energy balance: caloric intake versus caloric expenditure. This principle is a cornerstone of human metabolism and physiology. Therefore, real progress necessitates a direct and unflinching focus on caloric intake and expenditure.
Beyond the traditional, failed public health measures of awareness education, behavioral interventions, and industry-blaming, a more direct and financially directed strategy involving a sliding scale of health insurance costs should be implemented. Actuarial data unequivocally demonstrate that individuals with chronic conditions—many of which are directly driven by overweight and obesity—incur significantly higher medical expenses and claims payouts, as discussed earlier.
It is axiomatic that most people respond to things that affect their pocketbooks, and money has great power to effect change by altering behavior. (e.g., taxes) A system that reflects these known, quantified data points by adjusting premiums or cost-sharing based on documented health status and the resulting healthcare burden could provide a potent financial incentive for individuals and a more equitable distribution of costs within the insurance pool. Such a system directly aligns individual financial responsibility with the measurable cost of health outcomes driven by lifestyle choices.
Simply put, a solution to the problem is if you are a greater cost to the system, you pay more into the system.
Also, as earlier noted, there are no solid data to suggest that interventions on SNAP significantly impact the total caloric equation. Perhaps that is due to further misdirection. Relational databases linking SNAP-bought foods to total caloric content would be a snap. All the data are readily available, i.e., SNAP dollars, nutritional content of food, medical records re: weight (especially from entitlement programs). You really want to try and solve the problem? Cut people off when they overpurchase calories, not at a $$ limit.
Sure there will be howling, a cri du fat, if you will. Sure there will be political pain. But just as surely, there will be an effort directed where it should be. It might not succeed – at least it was properly directed. Or it might.
To genuinely stem the tide of chronic diseases, healthcare systems and public health initiatives must pivot towards a direct and comprehensive strategy that prioritizes the understanding and management of caloric intake and expenditure and consider economically grounded measures like health insurance adjustments based on quantifiable health burden, moving beyond superficial fixes to address the core metabolic engine that drives the health of a nation. A punch to the wallet is much more effective than a punch to the gut.
And if you really want to demonstrate brain rot more fully, concentrate on preservatives and organic foods, too. Yeah, them’s the tickets.
As an interesting aside, here is the source of “Maha” from the original Carnasie.
Jesus Christ is King
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