Opens Up the Future of Family and Community

MAHA Strategy: A U.S. National Initiative to Cure Childhood Chronic Disease at Its Root

Seki Kei, Oriental Medical Doctor

December 9, 2025

This article introduces the “MAHA Strategy,” a nationwide health reform initiative currently being advanced in the United States.

What is MAHA?

MAHA stands for “Make America Healthy Again”, a federal government project launched as a comprehensive response to the rapid rise in childhood chronic diseases.

On September 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officially announced the MAHA Strategy, based on recommendations from the MAHA Commission, which was established under Executive Order 14212. Grounded in the scientific analysis presented in the MAHA Report released on May 22, the strategy seeks to rebuild American institutions and environments into a “health-centered system.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described the MAHA Strategy as “the most ambitious reform agenda in modern history—one that will protect America’s children and families by overhauling our food and medical systems, advancing education, and unleashing science.” As this statement suggests, MAHA rests on the recognition that the conventional medical model alone cannot adequately address the growth in childhood chronic disease. It calls for a broad, multi-sector approach that encompasses not just medicine, but also food policy, environmental regulation, education, agriculture, and data science.

The MAHA Report identifies four major drivers of childhood chronic disease: 1)Unhealthy dietary patterns, 2)Accumulation of environmental chemicals, 3)Physical inactivity and chronic stress and 4)Excessive medicalization. Because these are overlapping and interacting factors, they cannot be addressed by any single policy measure. The distinctive feature of the MAHA Strategy is that it integrates research, regulatory reform, education, agriculture, and community-level interventions into one multi-layered framework.

Rebuilding Scientific Research: Laying a New Foundation for Causal Understanding

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched the MAHA Chronic Disease Initiative to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the causes of childhood chronic disease. This new program treats metabolism, immunity, neurodevelopment, and environmental exposures within a single conceptual framework, viewing chronic disease as a condition that arises from multiple interacting factors.

Many chronic conditions in children emerge from the combined effects of diet, sleep, stress, and exposure to chemicals. As a result, there is a growing consensus that traditional siloed research—divided by specialty—has reached its limits. What is now required is truly interdisciplinary, cross-cutting research. In parallel, work is underway to build a Real World Data Platform capable of securely integrating and analyzing diverse forms of everyday health information: insurance claims data, hospital electronic medical records, and sleep and activity data from smartwatches and other devices. The aim is to create a national data infrastructure that brings together the “real” health data generated in daily life and allows AI to analyze interrelationships at scale.

By combining and analyzing these data, AI can begin to visualize how factors with previously unclear causal pathways—such as ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption, sleep deprivation, chemical exposure, and chronic stress—actually affect health outcomes. Such insights will significantly improve the precision of policy design and clinical decision-making and form a crucial foundation for prevention and treatment tailored to individual lives and contexts. A system that continuously tracks the links between lifestyle, environment, and physical condition using nationwide data has the potential to be a major turning point for both public health and clinical medicine.

Institutional Reform: A Fundamental Update of Food Policy, Health Care, Insurance, and Regulatory Science

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) 2025–2030 are being revised to emphasize whole foods—such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and high-quality protein—and will be widely incorporated into school meals and federal nutrition programs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is tightening regulations on petroleum-based food colorings and expanding post-market review of food additives. It is also working to enhance transparency and scientific rigor for the “Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)” list, which has long been managed through voluntary industry notification. With a unified definition of ultra-processed foods, the overall direction of U.S. food policy—how the government steers food safety and nutrition standards—will become clearer.

In the medical field, HHS, the FDA, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are revising diagnostic criteria and prescribing guidelines to address the overuse of psychotropic medications and stimulants. Public databases are also being developed to make financial relationships between researchers and industry more visible, thereby greatly increasing transparency in medicine and biomedical science. These reforms are intended to support a shift away from overreliance on pharmaceuticals toward care that addresses root causes.

In health insurance, both Medicaid (the public insurance program jointly funded by federal and state governments for low-income people, people with disabilities, pregnant women, children, and others with difficulty affording care) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are being steered toward evaluation models that focus not on the volume of medical services provided but on health outcomes such as nutrition, physical activity, sleep, and mental health. Within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), discussions are underway on restricting purchases of junk food and supporting greater access to whole foods. Together, these efforts are pointing toward a transformation of the health system from one designed primarily to treat disease into one designed to create health.

Information, Transparency, and Education: Building a Knowledge Environment that Promotes Behavior Change

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Department of Education (ED), and the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition (PCSFN) are working together to launch the “Make American Schools Healthy Again” campaign in schools nationwide. This initiative introduces a new educational model that integrates physical activity, sleep, nutrition, and stress management, and seeks to transform schools into hubs that generate health.

Changes in school programs are expected to ripple out to households and communities, creating momentum to improve health behaviors across society, with children at the center. The American Children’s Environmental (ACE) Risk data platform, operated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), provides user-friendly maps that show environmental risks—such as water quality, air pollution, chemicals, and pesticide exposure—across the United States. Even without specialized training, families can quickly grasp how their local environment may be affecting children’s health. This, in turn, makes it easier to improve everyday behaviors—ventilation at home, water filtration, and food choices—based on scientific evidence. It lays a foundation for truly bringing science into daily life.

In addition, the nationwide “Real Food First” campaign, grounded in the revised dietary guidelines, aims to support home cooking skills and informed food choices, thereby embedding a whole-food-oriented food culture in everyday life. The U.S. Surgeon General is also strengthening warnings about the health risks of excessive screen time, e-cigarettes, and THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis.

Public–Private Collaboration and Community Projects: Restoring Health Across Society

HHS is supporting community-led efforts to reduce chronic disease and promoting the creation of “local health ecosystems” in which schools, pediatricians, and families work together. With the introduction of health navigator programs and home-visiting support services, communities will be able to implement concrete health interventions tailored to household conditions and local realities. The goal is not simply to rely on medical institutions, but to transform everyday life itself in a healthier direction, with community-level initiatives accelerating this shift.

Food environments provided by government institutions—such as school meals, prisons, and Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals—are being redesigned around whole foods. Working with local farmers and food companies, the government is building a food infrastructure that produces health. Partnerships with the restaurant industry are also being strengthened so that healthy menu options for children become more widely available. In this way, the overall food marketplace is gradually being reshaped to support health, reflecting a strong commitment to designing the “default choice”—the most convenient and likely option—in a healthier direction.

The USDA and EPA are further promoting farming practices that improve soil health, precision agriculture using drones and AI, and optimized pesticide use. The goal is to transform agriculture into a low-impact, high-nutrient system. At the same time, programs such as “Root Causes of Infertility”, which address the underlying contributors to infertility, are being rolled out. These efforts aim to support both the health of children and the conditions for future family formation. One of the hallmarks of MAHA is this integrated approach that connects agriculture, environmental policy, and family policy in a unified framework to support health.

Important points and concerns from the medical community

While RFK Jr. has promoted innovative health and medical policy in the United States, the medical community has raised several important concerns about the MAHA Strategy. In particular, there are concerns about (1) the inaccuracy in the handling of scientific evidence in the MAHA Report (e.g., citing non-existent studies and misinterpreting causal relationships), (2) political interference in the public health system, such as the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which could undermine the scientific foundations of cancer screening and preventive medicine, and (3) the potential for undermining the independence of academic publishing and research (e.g., pressure on major medical journals, demands for paper retractions, and plans for government-sponsored journals). These concerns are not about the philosophy of the MAHA Strategy itself, but rather about the medical community's calls for caution regarding the policymaking process, and healthy discussion is needed to maintain scientific transparency and institutional independence.

Summary: MAHA Strategy 's Future Public Health Model

The MAHA Strategy is an ambitious initiative to comprehensively redesign the systems of food, medicine, education, science, agriculture, and the environment to create a "social structure in which health is naturally generated." At its core is a new view of public health that health is largely determined by social design, rather than by individual effort.

Japan is also facing similar challenges, including addiction to ultra-processed foods, chemical exposure, mental health, and screen addiction, so the direction indicated by the MAHA Strategy is extremely important. I believe that America's challenge has the potential to become a new international standard for public health models in the 21st century.

References

Social Policy Overseas Information
December 9, 2025
Overseas Information

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