The Make America Healthy Again Commission (MAHA) on Thursday issued a 68-page report that blames poor diets, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, chronic stress, and unnecessary medication for contributing to childhood chronic illness.
The report, Making Our Children Healthy Again, provides an assessment of the factors that have helped cause children to become “the sickest generation in American history.”
The commission, established by President Donald Trump in February and led by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was tasked with producing a report within 100 days about the potential contributing causes for the “childhood chronic disease crisis.” Over the next four years, the panel said it will confront the root causes of the crisis to restore children’s health.
Among the statistics about chronic childhood illness cited in the report:
- More than one in five children over six years old in the United States are obese, which is more than a 270 percent increase compared to the 1970s.
- More than one in four teens have pre-diabetes, a figure that has more than doubled over the last two decades.
- The childhood cancer incidence has risen nearly 40 percent since 1975.
- Autism spectrum disorder impacts one in 31 children by age eight.
- Teenage depression rates nearly doubled from 2009 to 2019, and more than one in four teenage girls in 2022 reported a major depressive episode in the past year.
- Three million high school students seriously considered suicide in 2023.
- Between 1997 and 2018, childhood food allergy prevalence rose 88 percent.
The report links a range of factors, such as poor diet, exposure to environmental toxins, lack of physical activity, chronic stress, and overmedicalization, to chronic illness. Next, the commission aims to help drive the development of policy interventions to prevent the cycle of disease. The panel now plans to produce a strategy within 82 days based on the findings of the assessment.
“We will end the childhood chronic disease crisis by attacking its root causes head-on—not just managing its symptoms,” Kennedy said in an announcement. “We will follow the truth wherever it leads, uphold rigorous science, and drive bold policies that put the health, development, and future of every child first.”