The MAHA report: what it means for nutrition

By the DieticiansWorldwide.com editorial team · 17 October 2026 · Public health & global nutrition

What the MAHA report is

On 13 February 2025, Executive Order 14212 established the President's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission. The order asked the commission for two documents: an assessment of what is driving childhood chronic disease, and a strategy to respond to it (MAHA Strategy, September 2025, PDF).

The Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment was released on 22 May 2025 (MAHA Assessment, PDF). It identifies "four potential drivers" of the rise in childhood chronic disease:

1. Poor diet, which it links to a shift towards ultra-processed foods;
2. Aggregation of environmental chemicals;
3. Lack of physical activity and chronic stress; and
4. Overmedicalisation, including what it describes as overprescribing to children.

The Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, published in September 2025, turns these into proposals across research, regulation, federal food programmes, public awareness and work with the private sector. This article covers the nutrition parts. The documents also address vaccines, prescription medicines, fluoride and pesticides, which are outside the scope of a nutrition site.

The MAHA programme is politically charged, and opinions about it often follow opinions about the people leading it. This article does not take a side on those. It sets out what the documents say, what has happened since, and what the scientific evidence shows for each nutrition claim. For background on US nutrition policy and the dietetics profession there, see our United States country guide.

What the reports say about diet

Ultra-processed food

Ultra-processed food is the central nutrition theme. The Assessment says that "nearly 70% of children's calories now come from UPFs" and links this to obesity, diabetes and other chronic conditions. Its section on the subject draws on the NOVA classification, the 2019 NIH feeding trial in which people ate more on an ultra-processed diet, and a 2024 umbrella review of observational studies.

The figures are worth reading carefully. The more recent government estimate, from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, found that during August 2021 to August 2023 young people aged 1 to 18 got 61.9% of their calories from ultra-processed foods (NCHS Data Brief No. 536). The Strategy itself uses the lower framing: "over 60% of children's calories now come from highly processed foods".

On this topic, MAHA is close to mainstream nutrition science: there is broad agreement that diets dominated by ultra-processed products are a problem, even though researchers still argue about how to define the category and how strong the causal evidence is. Our guide to ultra-processed foods covers that debate in detail.

Food additives and dyes

The Assessment says over 2,500 additives may be used in food, and that some food colourings, naming Red 40, "have been associated with behavioral issues in children". The Strategy commits the FDA to "limit or prohibit the use of petroleum-based food dyes", to apply the same approach to federal nutrition programmes, especially school meals, and to speed up approval of colours from natural sources.

Seed oils

The Assessment describes a shift in US dietary fats from "minimally processed animal-based sources like butter and lard" to "industrial fats from refined seed oils", and says these oils contribute to "an imbalanced omega-6/omega-3 ratio, a topic of ongoing research for its potential role in inflammation". It names soybean, corn, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed and canola oils. The Strategy does not include a specific action on seed oils.

Federal food programmes and labelling

The Strategy also proposes to:

• update the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines in "a concise, user-friendly format";
• develop a government-wide definition of ultra-processed food;
• consider a final rule on front-of-pack nutrition labelling;
• reform the "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS) process by which companies can declare ingredients safe, including a mandatory notification programme;
• help states restrict "junk food" purchases through waivers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP);
• remove restrictions on whole milk in schools and "eliminate mandatory reduced-fat requirements" in federal nutrition programmes;
• modernise nutrient requirements for infant formula and increase testing for heavy metals; and
• explore industry guidelines to limit the marketing of certain unhealthy foods to children.

What has happened since: a status check

We checked the official sources listed below on 17 October 2026. Policies can change quickly, so check the primary source before relying on any of this.

Food dyes in detail

The most concrete nutrition action so far concerns synthetic colours. On 22 April 2025, HHS and the FDA announced plans to phase out petroleum-based dyes: starting the process to revoke Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B, "working with industry" to eliminate FD&C Green No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2 "by the end of next year", fast-tracking natural alternatives such as Galdieria extract blue, gardenia blue and butterfly pea flower extract, and asking companies to remove Red No. 3 sooner than its existing deadline (FDA, April 2025). The removal of the six dyes relies on industry cooperation rather than a ban, and we could not find an official progress report confirming how far companies have got.

The Red No. 3 decision predates the MAHA Commission. In January 2025, the FDA granted a petition to revoke its use in food and ingested drugs, because data showed the dye "induces cancer in male rats"; the order takes effect on 15 January 2027 (Federal Register, 16 January 2025). In July 2026 the FDA revoked Orange B, finding its authorised use "has been abandoned", with effect from 8 September 2026 (Federal Register, 23 July 2026), and proposed revoking Citrus Red No. 2, which it said had not been certified for food since 2020 (Federal Register, 23 July 2026). On the other side of the ledger, gardenia (genipin) blue was approved for use in various foods from 29 August 2025 (Federal Register, 15 July 2025).

States have also acted. West Virginia's House Bill 2354, summarised by the state legislature as "banning certain products from food", was approved by the Governor in March 2025 (West Virginia Legislature).

Where the evidence agrees

Several MAHA nutrition themes line up with long-standing scientific advice:

• Less ultra-processed food and added sugar. This is consistent with WHO, UK and Canadian guidance, and with the 2019 and 2025 feeding trials.
• More whole foods. Advice to build diets around vegetables, fruit, pulses and whole grains is uncontroversial.
• Better research. Expanding nutrition research, funding large randomised trials and improving national surveys are goals most nutrition scientists share.
• Some dye concerns. The best-known trial, from Southampton in the UK, gave 3-year-olds and 8- to 9-year-olds drinks containing artificial colours and the preservative sodium benzoate, and found increased hyperactivity in the general population of children (McCann and colleagues, Lancet 2007). California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment concluded in April 2021 that synthetic dyes "can result in hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral problems in some children" and that federal intake limits "may not sufficiently protect children's behavioral health" (OEHHA, April 2021, PDF).

Writing in JAMA in November 2025, Dariush Mozaffarian, Emily Callahan and William Frist said the Strategy "contains several potentially transformative provisions around food", while acknowledging that public health experts "may rightly raise concerns about its gaps and shortcomings" (JAMA, November 2025).

Where the evidence is weaker or disputed

Strength of the dye evidence

The dye evidence is real but modest. In the Southampton trial the average effects were small, with effect sizes between 0.12 and 0.32 standard deviations, and one of the two dye mixes did not affect 3-year-olds. OEHHA's own wording is that "some children" are affected and that sensitivity varies. Removing synthetic dyes is low-risk, but it is unlikely on its own to explain or reverse large trends in childhood behaviour or chronic disease.

Seed oils

The Assessment frames the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio as a matter of "ongoing research". Systematic reviews of trials have not found that linoleic acid, the main fat in seed oils, raises inflammation or heart disease risk, and the American Heart Association's 2017 advisory concluded that trials replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable oil reduced cardiovascular disease by about 30% (Sacks and colleagues, Circulation 2017). Our article Are seed oils bad for you? sets out the trials on both sides.

Citations and process

The Assessment's use of evidence was itself questioned. The news organisation NOTUS reported that seven of the more than 500 studies cited did not appear to have been published, and when asked, the White House press secretary said there were "formatting issues" that would be fixed and that they did not "negate the substance of the report" (AP via CBC, 30 May 2025). Supporters regard this as a correctable error in a long document; critics see it as a sign that some conclusions were reached before the evidence was checked.

Raw milk

Raw milk is often associated with the MAHA movement in public debate, but neither the Assessment nor the Strategy mentions it. The closest Strategy item is a pledge to "remove barriers preventing small dairy operations from processing and selling their own milk products locally". The FDA's position is unchanged: it says the perceived health benefits of raw milk "have not been scientifically substantiated", that 143 outbreaks have been linked to raw milk and raw milk products since 1987, and that children, pregnant women, older people and people with weakened immune systems are especially vulnerable (FDA, food safety and raw milk).

How MAHA shaped the 2026 dietary guidelines

The Strategy's first policy item was to update the Dietary Guidelines, and the link is explicit in the result. The foreword to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, signed by the HHS and USDA secretaries, says that "to Make America Healthy Again, we must return to the basics" and closes with "This is the foundation that will Make America Healthy Again" (Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, PDF).

Several MAHA themes appear in the guidelines almost word for word: the call to avoid highly processed food, the advice to limit "petroleum-based dyes" and artificial preservatives, the move to full-fat dairy, and butter and beef tallow named as cooking fats. Other parts of the guidelines are more conventional than the Assessment's language might suggest. They keep the long-standing limits of less than 10% of calories from saturated fat and less than 2,300 mg of sodium a day, and they do not tell people to avoid seed oils by name.

This matters because the dietary guidelines, unlike the MAHA reports, carry formal weight in federal programmes. Changes to school meals, WIC packages and other schemes follow the guidelines over time, so the practical effects of MAHA on what children eat will come largely through this route.

Questions to ask about any MAHA claim

Whatever your view of the movement, the same questions help you judge a specific claim, whether it comes from a government report, a critic or a social media post:

1. What exactly is being claimed? "Associated with" is not the same as "causes", and "some children" is not the same as "all children".
2. What kind of evidence supports it? Randomised trials in people carry more weight than cohort studies, which carry more weight than animal or laboratory studies.
3. How big is the effect? A statistically significant result can still be small in practical terms.
4. What do independent reviews conclude? Look for systematic reviews and national scientific advisory bodies, not single studies.
5. What is the trade-off? Removing a dye costs little; replacing affordable cooking oils with expensive fats, or skipping pasteurisation, can carry real costs or risks.

Our guide to spotting nutrition misinformation goes through these checks with more examples.

What it means for dietitians and families

For families, the practical message overlaps with what dietitians already advise: cook more from fresh ingredients, cut sugary drinks and packaged snacks, and read labels. Our explainer on the new food pyramid and the companion guide to the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines show how this thinking reached official advice. To see how your own eating compares with an evidence-based pattern, try the free healthy eating check.

For dietitians, a few changes need watching: possible revisions to school meal and WIC standards, state SNAP waivers, front-of-pack labels, and a federal definition of ultra-processed food. Clients will also bring questions about seed oils, tallow, raw milk and dyes, often from social media; being able to say clearly where the evidence is strong and where it is thin is the most useful response.

Two wider points are worth keeping in mind. First, cost: many MAHA proposals assume families can buy and cook more whole food, which is hard on a tight budget, a problem our article on food insecurity explores. Second, other countries have tackled the same issues differently. Brazil built its national food guide around food processing more than a decade ago; our Brazil country guide explains how that works.

If you want personal advice on feeding your family or managing a health condition, you can book a session with a registered dietitian.

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