BREAKING: MAHA report reveals 'chronic disease crisis' facing America
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00:00HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made Make America Healthy Again Commission just released
00:08its highly anticipated report on the state of America's health. And it comes with a warning
00:14that the rate of chronic disease is rapidly accelerating, especially to young America's
00:21children. This is Outnumbered. I'm Harris Faulkner here with my co-host Kayleigh McEnany. Also
00:27joining us today, Marie Harf, Fox News contributor, former State Department spokesperson under
00:32President Obama, and Kayleigh McGee-White, Independent Women's Features Editor-in-Chief
00:37and Journalism Fellow for the Steamboat Institute. Dr. Mark Siegel, Fox News Senior Medical Analyst,
00:43Professor of Medicine at NYU Langone Health, and host of Nation Under Lockdown on Fox Nation. So
00:50we'll lean on him big time for this news. Let's begin with Senior White House Correspondent Peter
00:55Ducey with more on the Maha report. Peter. Harris, it's 69 pages long, and it lays out the roadmap
01:04that RFK Jr. thinks federal agencies can use to reduce chronic childhood illnesses in this country.
01:10And the top of the list of problems is a poor diet. This report found that up to 70 percent of food
01:17that most children consume contains ultra-processed ingredients.
01:22I 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,
01:43improve the nutrient density of our food. Little children, as they grow up, require micronutrients in their food, their brain grows.
01:57Going through the other main bullet points of this report, chemical exposures are a concern,
02:02with the authors ordering a study on pesticides by next year, a lack of physical activity and chronic stress,
02:08basically kids playing less outside and more on their screens inside, and then over-medicalization, they say.
02:14The authors think kids in this country are being over-prescribed drugs they don't need.
02:19A generational accomplishment of the Trump administration will be reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis.
02:28It is common sense that Americans aren't chronically sick at high rates because of an absence of drugs.
02:35So, it's the EPA, it's the Agriculture Department, it's HHS all looking at this.
02:40There's going to be an event here in the 3 p.m. hour laying out the next 100 days of steps.
02:48Harris.
02:49Peter, thank you very much. It's right on time, too, because we were told when you and I were together like 15 minutes ago it was coming.
02:56Appreciate you. Thank you.
02:58Kayleigh, I know you've got a copy of it. We're going to lean hard on Dr. Siegel, so let's go around the couch and each ask a question.
03:04You want to go first?
03:05Yeah, absolutely. Look, this is an interesting report, Dr. Siegel. I love citations. I'm a weirdo.
03:10There's 522 citations in here. Haven't been able to read through them all.
03:14But what I find so fascinating are there's so many problems that I didn't really give much consideration to.
03:20The ultra-processed food is really interesting.
03:22I would also note the over-medicalization, over-medication, I should say.
03:27This part, interesting to me, 1,400% is the increase of anti-depressant prescriptions among young people in this country over about two decades.
03:38250% increase in ADHD prescriptions between 2006 and 2016.
03:44And it makes you wonder, the increase of depression among young people in this country and this massive increase in medication.
03:51Something seems grievously wrong.
03:53And the data in this report is staggering and really important.
03:57And I'd only add one more statistic that was so sobering that 3,000 teens considered suicide in 2023 right there in the report.
04:06It's all tied together, right?
04:07They focus on the obesity crisis that there's three times as many kids that are obese now as were in the 1970s.
04:13But obesity leads to sedentary behavior, which leads to depression.
04:17Then you get over-medicated.
04:19Somebody puts you on an anti-depressant.
04:21Then you're on a stimulant you may not need.
04:23The amount of stimulants are up three times also over the last decade and a half.
04:28All of it tied together.
04:2975% of kids don't qualify for the military now, largely because of obesity.
04:34All of this in the report.
04:36You know what got me the most, Kaylee?
04:38When I was in medical school and I was studying a five-year-old, we came up with this term called the fatty streak.
04:45I said, what's that?
04:46It turns out that the heart arteries feeding the heart that are the tiniest in the body are already starting to fill with fat in a five-year-old.
04:56The time to fight this crisis is now.
04:58They're 100% right.
04:59All right.
05:00So I want to start with a question about food.
05:02Because if you're going to tell people what's in their food, we've already been doing that.
05:06What I understand that the Secretary Kennedy wants to do is to tell you what those things actually do to the body.
05:13That's what's different.
05:14So when I read the nutritional value, I'm not looking for percentages anymore.
05:19Now I want some real information like, well, what is that dye that's in there?
05:22And he's making us sensitive to that.
05:24How does that help the situation, though, when people are going to eat what they want to eat?
05:28Well, we can't take away with people eating what they want to eat.
05:31But there's big lobbies in Congress that are lobbying for food that's on the store shelves.
05:37And one of the reasons they want it there is because it lasts longer.
05:40So it's more of a profit.
05:42And so they're already making a dent in this by fighting the food dyes.
05:45They're already moving in that direction.
05:47And you like that in particular.
05:48I like it a lot.
05:49Is it in everything, food dyes?
05:51It's in everything.
05:53And nine of these dyes are now being taken out.
05:56But they're really unhealthy.
05:57And, you know, one of the ways that he gets stage weight in all of this stage weight is by comparing us to other countries.
06:04You know, you go to Europe and it's not in the food.
06:07Or you go to Europe and you eat pasta and you don't gain weight.
06:10And so we have to at least be as sensitive to what's in our food as other industrialized countries are.
06:16And we're not.
06:17We're not.
06:18And the cost of all of this, by the way, other thing the report focused on that I like is the word sick care system.
06:24Because it costs us a fortune to take care of people when they're sick because they're eating this crap.
06:29Right.
06:30Kale, you have a question?
06:31You know, I never would have considered myself crunchy until I found out that I was going to be a mom.
06:35And now, like most moms and soon-to-be moms, I'm very concerned about what I'm putting in my own body, what my child is going to one day consume.
06:42And I do think that information and choice is so important here.
06:46Because obviously the European Union, which gains a lot of comparison in this issue, you know, they have very strict regulations.
06:53And I worry about replicating some of those and becoming a little bit nanny statish on this.
06:59Yet there are some things that they do right.
07:01Whereas, you know, on certain products where they allow food dyes, where they allow certain ingredients, they require those producers to actually notify customers on a warning label before they're consuming that product so that they're at least aware.
07:15Is that something that you think the U.S. could replicate?
07:18Yes, I do.
07:19And I think the U.S. is moving in that direction.
07:21But more to the point Harris was making, we still need free choice to be in here.
07:25So another thing this report focuses on is the center is going to be the farmer again.
07:30If we can go back to the farmer and what they're growing and maybe incentivize, rather than regulate, how about incentivize them to grow healthier food?
07:37And if the food has grown healthier, can we get it to the table, food to table, rather than through some intermediary who makes it to the point where we can't even recognize where it came from?
07:46Or afford it.
07:47Or afford it.
07:48Or afford it.
07:49And that would be great for our farmers, too, because they're at the heart of all of this.
07:52They're the superheroes.
07:53And they know a lot more if we'll just listen to them.
07:57And not pay them not to grow, right?
07:59Right, exactly.
08:00And on that point, Dr. Siegel, what do you make of the report's findings on pesticides?
08:05I know that that's been a pushback from the farming lobby in particular.
08:08Well, I like the combination.
08:10See, that's another thing I like about this report.
08:12What I'm emphasizing is how it's all together.
08:14It's not just what's in your food.
08:16It's what's in your environment.
08:17And I think, you know, talking about pregnancy, for sure, pesticides and how that affects fetuses in the womb is a very disturbing question.
08:25I want to keep talking about this nutrition issue because, you know, I'm old enough to remember when Michelle Obama tried to do some of this.
08:31There was a lot of criticism of her trying to get kids to eat healthier.
08:34So I'm glad to see that being a focus of this, Dr. Siegel.
08:38My question for you is it's hard for me not to read this in combination with this bill that passed through the House last night that cuts 300 billion from SNAP benefits, nutritional benefits that poor kids use to get food, food aid for poor kids who can't afford it another way.
08:55How do we help get healthier food to kids if at the same time Congress is cutting the exact funding that helps poor kids get that food?
09:03That's a really, really fair question, Marie.
09:05I think it has to go on at the state level where some laws about SNAP are passing and start to incentivize alternatives in the food rather than the same rubbery pizza in schools or the same unhealthy French fries.
09:18What are you going to replace it with?
09:19I wrote a piece about that in stat.
09:21What are we going to replace it with?
09:22Because food's an addiction.
09:23What are you addicted to?
09:24If you're addicted to bad food, how can we get healthier food in there?
09:28In Arkansas, they're saying let's put rotisserie chicken on SNAP.
09:32I like that, although they say there's plenty of fat in that.
09:34It's certainly healthier than something that looks like it came from the moon.
09:37Real quickly, baby formula because we have a couple of moms in waiting, as I like to call you guys.
09:43Just is there any ingredient in baby formula that has you worried at all?
09:47Because that has been a replacement for years and years and some children have to have it, some moms depend on it.
09:53No, I think that baby formula has those exact forever chemicals in there that I'm worried about.
09:59Absolutely.
10:00It has to be, again, looked at from the beginning.
10:02How is it made?
10:03Okay.
10:04All right.
10:05So we're looking at everything.
10:06And we'll move on.
10:08I know you were in the hot seat there.
10:09Appreciate it.
10:10Hey, everyone.
10:11I'm Emily Campagno.
10:12Catch me and my co-hosts, Harris Faulkner and Kayleigh McEnany on Outnumbered every weekday at 12 p.m.
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