In recent public appearances, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said obesity dropped 3% “in the last year” and suggested the Trump administration deserves at least some of the credit. One poll shows obesity falling by about that much — but the decline happened over several years and began well before President Donald Trump’s current term.
And there’s little evidence it’s because of Kennedy’s focus on chronic disease prevention or his push to get Americans to eat better, experts told us.
According to Gallup polling, the rate of obesity among U.S. adults peaked in 2022 and has fallen every year since. The decline started during the Biden administration and has continued under Trump.
Kennedy — who has made eating “real foods” a core part of his Make America Healthy Again movement and sometimes disparaged GLP-1 drugs in recent years — has trumpeted the purported decline in obesity several times in recent months.
“This year, obesity rates dropped in this country, for the first time in 40 years, by about 3%,” Kennedy said during an Aug. 24 event on childhood nutrition. “Consumption of real foods went up by 7 to 10% this year. And there are many, many other indicia [that] show that what we’re doing is actually working.”
He referenced the same stat while speaking at a community health center in California on Aug. 13.
