For decades, the United States has spent trillions treating chronic disease while largely ignoring its root cause: what we eat. That may finally be changing.
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative represents one of the most serious federal commitments to nutrition policy in a generation. In just over a year, Washington has moved faster on food and health than it has in the previous three decades combined, and the results are already beginning to show.
Consider what has happened. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, for the first time in the history of that document, explicitly told Americans to limit ultra-processed foods. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released human food program priorities with nutrition at the center. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) directed hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid to align their food and nutrition policies with the new dietary guidelines.
The Department of Agriculture has approved SNAP waivers in 22 states that restrict the purchase of soda and candy with federal food assistance dollars. And 53 medical schools across 31 states have committed to requiring at least 40 hours of nutrition education, a staggering gap in physician training that has persisted for far too long.
None of this is small. Taken together, it represents a federal government finally treating food as a determinant of health, not an afterthought.
What makes MAHA credible is that it goes beyond rhetoric. The MAHA Strategy Report tackled ultra-processed foods, GRAS reform, marketing to children, and nutrition education for clinicians in a single document. The CMMI launched new value-based payment models, including MAHA ELEVATE, which will invest up to $100 million in organizations delivering whole-person lifestyle medicine. NIH, CMS, and FDA are, for perhaps the first time, pulling in the same direction.
The American public is ready for this. A February 2026 poll found that ensuring food safety ranked just behind lowering healthcare costs as a top congressional priority. Voters across the political spectrum are demanding it.
We have a metabolic health crisis in this country that is bankrupting families, overwhelming our healthcare system, and stealing years from people’s lives. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease: these are not mysteries. They are, in large part, the downstream consequences of a food system that has been optimized for profit over health.
MAHA is not a complete solution. Execution, funding, and insulation from industry interference will determine whether this moment becomes a turning point or another missed opportunity. But the direction is right. And direction, finally, is something.
Noosheen Hashemi is an American entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. She is the co-founder and chief executive officer of January AI, an artificial intelligence company focused on predictive and personalized approaches to health. January AI integrates clinical, lifestyle, and other real-world data into a unified model of individual health.
