In my 2025 health care predictions, I shared that for those in health care and public health, 2025 was the time to bring your “A” game. The first two and a half months of 2025 have proven that prediction correct.
Given that March is national nutrition month and many conversations are revolving around the topic of making America healthier, this two-part blog shares two nutrition-specific predictions. They focus on the pathway to improving our collective health and what steps will—and won’t—get us to a healthier status quo.
Prediction 1: America’s health won’t improve if leaders keep their focus on individual ingredients instead of prioritizing systemic change to the food environment
Systemic problems require systemic solutions
This prediction is grounded in Modularity Theory, which states that a systemic problem without clear interfaces between its component parts requires a holistic approach if leaders hope to develop an effective solution. That means one entity must wrap its arms around the entire problem, and siphoning off parts of the problem to different teams or organizations won’t be effective. This is because of the interdependent nature of the problem’s components. In this instance, nutrition is the broad problem to be addressed, or the “system,” and individual nutrients are the component parts.
Nutrition’s impact on health is multifaceted. Nutrition is a young field of science, and there is still much we don’t know about how foods and drinks interact with our bodies and how that impacts our ultimate health. However, there are some things we do know to be true, based on extensive research.
Famed nutrition writer Michael Pollan summarizes it well: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” In essence, the research we have says our health is better when we eat unprocessed foods, as opposed to processed foods. Decades of research highlight the importance of fruits and vegetables and the need for proteins and fats.
That’s not to say there’s widespread agreement on the “best” diets for health. There’s not. Some argue for more protein, others for low fat, and others for a balance of macronutrients. Unfortunately, amidst this widespread uncertainty, much of the focus in today’s culture is on individual ingredients. This has led to a sharp rise in supplement popularity.
But individual nutrients don’t all work in predictable, verifiable, and specifiable ways; and predictable, verifiable, and specifiable interfaces are required for piecemeal approaches to be effective.
Our disconnected approach to our interdependent health problem has not only led to the cultural elevation of some nutrients and foods, such as the rise of “superfoods,” but it has also led to a vilification of single ingredients. Among those attracting disdain in the zeitgeist, and even in recent policy, are seed oils and food dyes.
While reducing our consumption of seed oils and replacing it with animal fats, for example, might improve our health—or might not—eliminating or adding single ingredients (a modular approach) is not the most effective pathway to improved health.
Instead, Modularity Theory clearly outlines that taking an interdependent, holistic approach to nutrition will be much more successful at improving America’s health.
The problem with this outlook is that systemic change is expensive and difficult. It’s much easier for leaders to make small, incremental changes and celebrate them as significant wins—even if theory and existing scientific evidence both suggest otherwise.
What current actions predict about the likelihood of a healthier future
The attractiveness of treating our health problem via singular ingredients was displayed in a recent national news interview. As you likely heard, Sean Hannity interviewed the head of HHS while he was eating fries at a Steak ‘n Shake restaurant.
Needless to say, the head of our highest national health entity eating fast food on national television is not only highly unusual, but also appears to condone that fast food can make us healthier.
Image source: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369907937112
While the meal was an odd choice, the discussion about it was the greater concern for our collective health.
As his statements highlight, he’s—and perhaps, collectively, we’ve—missed the forest for the trees here. Deep-fried potatoes, whether they’re made in beef tallow or vegetable oil, aren’t the solution to our nation’s health woes.
At best, celebrating Steak ‘n Shake’s decision to switch their fry fat from vegetable oil to beef tallow is a distraction from the real problem: our food system makes nutrient-poor foods accessible and affordable while more nutritious options are harder to access and more expensive.
At worst, it embodies exactly what America is getting wrong about nutrition and foreshadows what’s to come: more modular, one-off “improvements” to easily accessible, low-cost, nutrient-poor food.
Until we—as both individuals and national leaders—realize nutrition’s impact on health is a systemic problem to solve, America won’t get any healthier. As Modularity Theory clearly outlines, systemic issues require systemic solutions. To improve our health, we must make the foods we know contribute to better health outcomes—such as fresh vegetables and fruits—more affordable and accessible. Unfortunately, recent legislation will make them even more difficult to access and less affordable.
In our current political system, leaders prioritize near-term and often divisive wins, as they are more likely to lead to reelection than investments in change that don’t pay off within one term. Because of the limited amount of time to achieve the desired outcome and its current popularity in our culture, politicians find prioritizing the removal of individual ingredients from processed foods more appealing than something like overhauls to farm subsidies that would encourage more fruit and vegetable production and reduce something like corn production. (Yes, corn is a vegetable, but it’s mostly used for animal feed and fuel or in many processed foods or exported to other countries.) Again, systemic change takes time and isn’t always popular.
Therefore, until politicians’ incentives change or someone in power determines that the long-game for health improvement is more important than quick “wins” for reelection or continued appointment, leaders are unlikely to shift their focus. They’ll continue to support the ineffective vilification of single ingredients at the expense of the more effective prioritization of systemic change to improve long-term health.
That’s not to say a shift from piecemeal solutions to systemic change is impossible. We’ve seen leaders prioritize long-term health in the past, which Michelle Obama did with her “Let’s Move!” campaign.
The pathway to improved health is clear. The question is whether politicians will, against the odds, take it.
If they do, change will look like leaders…
- Prioritizing interdependent solutions to interdependent problems.
- Focusing on policies and system changes that promote greater access to whole foods that we know improve health outcomes.
- Strengthening institutions that support health and healthy food systems.
If they don’t, I can tell you exactly what will happen. But you don’t need me to…the theory already did.
