Robert F. Kennedy Jr., United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, has always known how to spark the national conversation. Through his new dietary guidelines, Kennedy flips the food pyramid upside down. He questions the traditional American diet by placing a bigger emphasis on high-quality proteins, including red meat, full-fat dairy, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables over grains. And through these changes, Kennedy attempts to change America’s unhealthy narrative, but his plans for the future continue to falter. 

When Kennedy unveiled the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, his ideas for changing nutritional guidelines were, in part, welcomed by health professionals. Kennedy’s goal, using the food pyramid and nutritional guidelines, is simple: “Eat real food.” At the center of it, his principle comes back to whole, unprocessed foods that are safe from “the industry,” which has seemingly taken control of the world’s diet. 

To Kennedy’s credit, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 55 percent of Americans’ total calories come from ultra-processed foods. And as per BMJ, greater exposure to ultra-processed food is associated with a greater risk of adverse health effects, including cardiometabolic issues and possible mortality. These risks seem to increase for children, as the issue is that a majority of children in America seemingly have only two choices for lunch: a cold packet of carrots or a hamburger and a corndog served with French fries and ketchup. The answer for many children is eating the latter. 

Besides the opinions of health professionals, implementing these new guidelines for federal food programs, including school lunches, military meals, hospitals, etc., is going to require a massive overhaul of our current system. The biggest concern for this is the students within schools. As of now, the average price that schools spend on lunch is $3.67 per meal, according to the USDA, which is supposed to accommodate the staffing and equipment as well. 

Yet, the larger limits that Kennedy has placed on sugar and salt, specifically less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day and no amount of added sugar being recommended for children 10 and under, will create issues for schools. Especially those struggling with the ability to produce nutritious food, given their limited resources and infrastructure. Adding the financial burden of trying to abide by Kennedy’s new guidelines will also require an increase in their budgets, which circles back to how the administration must create proper budgeting rather than rules and regulations, as they have done in the past. 

And the constant issues with budgeting and planning has been noted as far back as Michelle Obama’s “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act,”  where she attempted to implement proper, healthy foods for children, caused problems for hundreds of schools across the country; the Act required more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk while reducing sodium and unhealthy fats. 

But, during the 2012-2013 school year alone, which followed the act, the participation by students fell by nearly one million students. Schools incurred massive costs, and by doing so, some had to pull funding from their teaching budgets to cover the increase in food costs. What this reflects is the previous failures of uprooting and changing the food within schools. This begs the question: what will make Kennedy’s changes this time any different and will he address the increase in cost per meal after his dietary guidelines are implemented within schools? 

Kennedy’s nutritional guidelines are improvements, and while health professionals argue about the intricacies of the guidelines as a whole, they have been an advancement. Kennedy needs to finish the job, which starts by pushing equitable policy forward for schools before moving on. The issue here is that Kennedy has moved on and instead appointed members to oversee a congressionally approved budget of 2 billion dollars on autism research, policy, and social services, but continues to neglect his funding and investments for school food that he himself has advocated for as of January 30th. 

Kennedy so far has defined his time as the United States Secretary of Health in two ways: checking off tasks to address, and moving from topic to topic within days, all leaving real change behind.

There must be planning that’s thoughtful towards the future, where we think about what we are producing and the price that ends up on the national plate. I don’t think Kennedy’s pyramid needs more scrutiny; what needs more scrutiny are his plans for the future.