The Administration’s Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy Shares Many AFPI Policy Recommendations

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Background: President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14212 (EO) on February 13, 2025, which established the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission (Commission). The EO directed the commission to present to the president a foundational assessment, which was completed on May 22, 2025. The EO further required the commission to submit a Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, building on the initial assessment, which was recently completed on September 9, 2025.

The strategy, which seeks to end childhood chronic disease, shares many mutual policy recommendations with the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). Our policy professionals look forward to working with the administration to implement these key components of the strategy.

Mutual Policy Recommendations: AFPI & the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy Report

Addressing Ultra-Processed Foods, Post Market Review of Chemical Additives in Food, Generally Recognized As Safe Reform, and Conflicts of Interest: AFPI’s Make America Healthy Again by Ensuring Safe Foods issue brief calls for addressing all four of these policy areas in order to protect consumers from potentially harmful food ingredients and generate greater transparency and sound science within our food supply.

Promoting Natural Food Dye Alternatives: AFPI’s Driving Responsible Nutrition policy brief similarly promotes policies that enable greater U.S. agricultural production and subsequent federal approvals of plant-based natural color sources. Natural dyes can be substituted for artificial colors in the food supply chain.

Putting “Nutrition” Back in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: AFPI’s Driving Responsible Nutrition policy brief similarly supports timely technical assistance and approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) of state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program waivers banning purchases of non-nutritious foods and beverages with these benefits in their respective states.

Deploying Make America Healthy Again Food Boxes: AFPI’s Driving Responsible Nutrition Policy similarly calls on USDA to develop and deploy Make America Healthy Again food boxes that would deliver nutritious, domestically produced foods to those in need.

Restoring Cafeteria Choices and Whole Milk in Schools: AFPI’s op-ed, “Driving Healthier Behaviors and Outcomes in Children, Including at School,” aligns with the strategy’s recommendation to remove current restrictions on whole milk sales in schools.

Advancing Precision Agricultural Technology: AFPI’s Farmers First Agenda similarly encourages innovation in farming, including precision agriculture and practices that improve productivity, sustainability, and the nutritional integrity of American-made foods.

Farmers Driving Healthy Nutrition: All of the aforementioned rural policy products, as well as AFPI’s State of the Farm Economy fact sheet, similarly call for a comprehensive, bold deregulatory agenda and streamlined government processes for agricultural producers. Unleashing American agricultural production through deregulation ultimately drives greater availability and consumption of domestically grown whole foods.

Improving Rural and Tribal Health: AFPI’s State of Rural America fact sheet outlines obstacles to rural health, including the fact that 4% of rural hospitals have closed in recent years, meaning patients must weigh the option of driving longer distances for the same services. To address important rural issues like these, the strategy calls for a review of National Institutes of Health research on health improvement in rural and tribal communities, with a focus on chronic childhood diseases.

Direct Primary Care: AFPI’s Top America First Actions Needed to Put Patients and Doctors Back in Charge of Healthcare report similarly urges lawmakers to define direct primary care (DPC) as medical care, not health insurance, to allow individuals who own a health savings account to enroll in DPC arrangements.

Generating Price Transparency: AFPI’s Top America First Actions Needed to Put Patients and Doctors Back in Charge of Healthcare also encourages federal policymakers to strengthen the administration’s hospital and insurance price transparency measures, giving Americans control over their healthcare decisions. AFPI is working with our state chapters to codify the administration’s hospital price transparency rules at the state level through AFPI’s model state policy, the Hospital Price Transparency Act.