Make America Healthy Again Commission’s Report Zones in on Child Health ‘Crisis’

The White House on Thursday will release the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission’s report focused on improving the health of the nation’s children.

Breitbart News obtained a copy of the 79-page MAHA report, which President Donald Trump commissioned 100 days ago, ahead of its release this afternoon. It aims to uncover the causes of diminishing health in America’s children and “unpack the potential dietary, behavioral, medical, and environmental drivers behind the crisis.”

Section one of the report dives into the ultra-processed foods (UPFs).

As one data point, it cites “[a]n umbrella review of 45 meta-analyses published in the BMJ analyzing data from nearly 10 million participants, found that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked to 32 adverse health outcomes.”

These outcomes include cancer, cardiovascular disease, mental health disorders, type 2 diabetes, and all-cause mortality.

Section two examined chemicals in the environment, while section three explores “The Crisis of Childhood Behavior in the Digital Age,” including a drop-off in physical activity among children, particularly at school.

The fourth prong of the report focuses on the “Overmedicalization of Our Kids.”

“American healthcare operates in a marketplace where incentives, when misaligned, can foster and encourage overuse by allowing stakeholders to maximize profits at the expense of consumer health and wellbeing,” the report noted.

“In recent decades, American children have, as a product of these misaligned incentives, been subject to an unprecedented period of over-prescription driven, in large part, by corporate influence, with demonstrable consequences for their health,” it continues.

The report recommends ten areas of research initiatives for various government agencies as part of the next step in the process:

1. Addressing the Replication Crisis: NIH should launch a coordinated initiative to confront the replication crisis, investing in reproducibility efforts to improve trust and reliability in basic science and interventions for childhood chronic disease.
2. Post-Marketing Surveillance: NIH and FDA should build systems for real-world safety monitoring of pediatric drugs and create programs to independently replicate findings from industry-funded studies.
3. Real-World Data Platform: Expand the NIH-CMS autism data initiative into a broader, secure system linking claims, EHRs, and environmental inputs to study childhood chronic diseases.
4. AI-Powered Surveillance: Create a task force to apply AI and machine learning to federal health and nutrition datasets for early detection of harmful exposures and childhood chronic disease trends.
5. GRAS Oversight Reform: Fund independent studies evaluating the health impact of self-affirmed GRAS food ingredients, prioritizing risks to children and informing transparent FDA rulemaking.
6. Nutrition Trials: NIH should fund long-term trials comparing whole-food, reduced-carb, and low-UPF diets in children to assess effects on obesity and insulin resistance.
7. Large-scale Lifestyle Interventions: Launch a coordinated national lifestyle-medicine initiative that embeds real-world randomized trials—covering integrated interventions in movement, diet, light exposure, and sleep timing—within existing cohorts and EHR networks.
8. Drug Safety Research: Support studies on long-term neurodevelopmental and metabolic outcomes of commonly prescribed pediatric drugs, emphasizing real-world settings and meaningful endpoints.
9. Alternative Testing Models: Invest in New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), such as organ-on-a-chip, microphysiological systems, and computational biology, to complement animal testing with more predictive human-relevant models.
10. Precision Toxicology: Launch a national initiative to map gene–environment interactions affecting childhood disease risk, especially for pollutants, endocrine disruptors, and pharmaceuticals.

During a press call on the report Thursday with the Cabinet ahead of its release, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. emphasized that making policy recommendations is also central to the next phase of the process.

“It was 98 days ago today, on February 13, that President Trump…convened the MAHA Commission, and directed us to produce a report within 100 days,” Kennedy said.

“Over the next 100 days, we are going to do a follow-up report on policy recommendations,” he added.

When asked what issues highlighted in the report he wants prioritized for policy recommendations, Kennedy said, “All of them all important,” but mentioned ultra-processed food in particular.

“I think everybody wants to prioritize the ultra-processed food crisis, and try to reduce our reliance on ultra-processed food and try to improve the quality of the food, improve the nutrient density of our food,” he said.