Is the liberty of American health under threat? Are Americans still free to make their health choices? The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement would have you believe the threat is dire, with Big Food and Big Pharma’s crony capitalism pervasively controlling all aspects of American health. But a quick trip around the grocery store combats this myth — apples or Cheetos anyone?
The food and medicine options in developed countries are more in line with choice overload versus the narrative of corporate capture. Americans have more opportunities than ever before to adjust to dietary preferences. Any student of history should recall that dietary restrictions were often pervasive, dependent on successful harvests, political endangerment, and civil unrest.
The American public would do well to remember that they should not entrust their health to the government. The food pyramid, for example, was a government creation that promoted carbohydrates as the base of all healthy diets and limited protein and fats. This type of government-advocated diet promotes obesity and many of the metabolic issues (like diabetes) facing our nation.
Instead of relying on the government’s bad track record to fix American health, the American consumer needs to trust in their own power. The food, health, and pharmaceutical industries do not force the purchase of their products — they meet the demands of consumers. If consumers stop buying products with unwanted ingredients, the food industry will remove the ingredients. If the patients start adopting new healthy lifestyle choices, the medical industry won’t be marketing weight loss and metabolic drugs to patients. Consumers have power over their choice.
Indeed, the American public supports improving access to healthy foods (especially in school lunches) and addressing food ingredient concerns while increasing transparency between bureaucrats and industry. But the public’s concern for improving health doesn’t mean they want the government to “make” them do anything.
The government has a limited role in public health to engage in issues that prevent harm from extending to others, such as in combating contagious diseases. The government’s mission creep into the role of personal health leads to politically biased opinions becoming unofficial mandates on health.
We can effectively engage on issues important to American health by empowering public choice. By offering health education through existing federal programs like school lunch, SNAP, and WIC, we can increase transparency between bureaucracy and industry to reduce existing crony capitalism. The government’s role should be a facilitator of information and an enabler of consumer choice.
For example, one issue of great importance to Americans is improving access to fruit and vegetables in school lunch programs. Leveraging the existing federal school lunch program, we can improve nutritional and health outcomes through education, without limiting choices for adult consumers.
The U.S. would benefit from following Japan’s school lunch program, which is a vital tool in combating obesity. Japan requires strict nutritional standards in schools without offering unhealthy alternatives, hires dedicated food and nutrition teachers who engage students in hands-on learning and adopts policies that bridge the income disparities among students for nutritional access.
The concerns about the government’s new health report should come as no surprise. When a 73-page health report is created by 14 mostly non-medical commissioners (only 2 have medical experience) in less than 100 days, successful conclusions are unlikely. But what the American public should take from this experience is that their health should not be left up to the government’s intervention — it is slow, frequently inaccurate, and often politically biased.
Americans still have a choice and should empower themselves to make better nutritional and lifestyle decisions, instead of waiting for the government to save them from the industries that already cater to the desires of the consumers, not the whims of government.
Madi Clark is a Senior Policy Analyst for the Mountain States Policy Center, an independent research organization based in Idaho, Montana, Eastern Washington and Wyoming. Find them online at mountainstatespolicy.org.
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