Opinion Today: “Make America healthy again?” Others have tried.

The long history that unites an otherwise incoherent movement.

View in browser|nytimes.com February 18, 2025 By Jessica Grose Opinion Writer I have spent a lot of time over the past year thinking about our new secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and what his supporters see in him and his Make America Healthy Again movement. At first glance, none of it quite hangs together logically — the ideas Kennedy champions are all over the map. Some are supported by mainstream science (the typical American diet is unhealthy). Others are completely wackadoo (most of what he has said about vaccines). MAHA also brings together seemingly disparate groups of people and interests, from crunchy Christian home-schooling moms to psychedelic enthusiasts to musclebound fitfluencers. "You know what all of this reminds me of," I said to my editor a few weeks back. "The Road to Wellville." If you're not familiar with that 1994 film or the novel that it's based on, it is a fictionalized, farcical representation of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, an early 20th century health guru who ran a medical spa in Battle Creek, Mich., was obsessed with digestion, and had some super weird ideas about sex that are not worth getting into here. That thought led me to learn about the real story of Kellogg, which in turn led me to discover Bernarr MacFadden, a contemporary of Kellogg and, as it turned out, a closer analog to Kennedy. MacFadden loved raw milk, he hated vaccines and the American Medical Association, loved "medical freedom," and just as Kennedy posts videos of himself shirtless and pumping iron, MacFadden used the tabloids and magazines he owned to promote shirtless images of his fit physique. MacFadden and Kellogg's alternative health ideas were able to enter the American mainstream in the 1910s and '20s because it was a time of rapid change and lack of faith in institutions that mirrors what many Americans feel today. Understanding that can help us combat the worst excesses of Kennedy and MAHA, as I explain in a new essay. Read more: Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times Guest Essay Every 100 Years America Produces a Robert Kennedy Jr. Charismatic influencers from a century ago presaged this moment. By Jessica Grose Here's what we're focusing on today: Editors' Picks Lydia Polgreen South Africa Is a Warning By closing their frontiers to migrants, rich countries risk destabilizing important nations across the globe. By Lydia Polgreen More From Opinion Guest Essay We Are Blundering Our Way Into a Financial Crisis A blowup won't be sparked by government spending but instead from political malpractice. 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