Will the FDA Make 2025 the Year of Health Eating?
A new year often begins with new year’s resolutions (and hangovers). According to a survey performed by Statista, two of the most common resolutions Americans made this year are to lose weight and eat healthier. The two are usually related. Unfortunately, most resolutions don’t become new habits. But this year, the Food and Drug Administration is here to help.
Just before 2025 began, the agency published a final rule establishing new regulatory requirements for food producers when labeling their goods as “healthy.” Under the new system, anything labeled as healthy must meet limit requirements for added sugar, sodium, and saturated fats. These foods must also meet nutritional requirements specified in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a document first established in 2022.
These new requirements use the latest dietary and nutritional research findings to help Americans be better informed and healthier. As stated in the new rule published by the Federal Registrar:
Given that nutrition science has evolved since the 1990s, this final rule updates the definition of “healthy” to be consistent with current nutrition science and Federal dietary guidance to help ensure that consumers have access to more complete, accurate, and up-to-date information on food labels. This final rule is also consistent with the longstanding purpose of this implied nutrient content claim to indicate that the nutrient levels of a food may help consumers maintain healthy dietary practices.
While these new rules came from an outgoing presidential administration, new leadership similarly promises to “make America healthy again.” Soon-to-be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (the parent agency of the FDA) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hopes to pass more regulations limiting ultra-processed foods, food additives, and agricultural pesticides. Incoming FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary is also expected to re-evaluate chemicals used in food processing.
The FDA, HHS, and its future leaders have well-intended goals but little hope for success.
Dating back to the 1970s, the USDA changed its food pyramid three times—a diagram constituting what the government considers healthy eating portions. Each revision emphasized the role of carbohydrates as the staple of a healthy diet. Modern nutrition and obesity research now concludes this is a mistake. Yet, the Food Pyramid (now called MyPlate) remains.
Previous nutritional requirements dictating what can be legally labeled as healthy were also misleading. As the FDA admits, “Nuts and seeds, higher fat fish, such as salmon, certain oils, and water are examples of foods that did not qualify for the ‘healthy’ claim before but are foundational to a healthy eating pattern and recommended by the Dietary Guidelines.”
Clearly, history is not on their side.
The FDA also actively prevents many agents that can help Americans become healthier from reaching patients and consumers. The FDA’s war on vaping prevents many vaping products from reaching consumers to help them quit smoking (the leading cause of preventable death in the US). The agency has also made critical mistakes while trying to help the ongoing weight loss injection treatment shortage. These treatments (including Ozempic, Zepbound, and others) have helped millions lose clinically significant amounts of weight.
In 2022, I urged readers of The Beacon, “Don’t Let the FDA Tell You What’s Healthy.” I made a similar plea in 2019 and 2018. I’m doing it again now. Given the FDA’s persistence and ambitious new leadership, this might become an annual tradition.
