During his short tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has enacted numerous policies intended to help Americans become healthier. But the press and the Democrats hate him. Photo courtesy of the Department of War.Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken a historic step toward making the nation’s children healthier by restoring the Presidential Fitness Test. The original test dates to the 1960s under his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and was replaced in 2012 by the Presidential Youth Fitness Program. The secretary also launched the Get Kids Active campaign, kicking it off at the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City in partnership with WWE.Kennedy said the move is meant to tackle a “chronic disease crisis” among American youth. Triple H, whose real name is Paul Levesque, was named vice chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition as part of the initiative. WWE superstars Cody Rhodes and Charlotte Flair joined the kids for fitness demonstrations at the opening event, with wrestling commentator Byron Saxton hosting.Since taking office in February 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pursued a Make America Healthy Again agenda spanning federal dietary guidance, food additives, SNAP eligibility, vaccine policy, medical education, agency restructuring, and drug pricing, with results ranging from finalized rules to voluntary pledges still pending action.The most significant completed initiative is the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, released on January 7, 2026, by HHS and USDA. The guidelines establish the nutritional standards for SNAP, school meals, and other federal nutrition programs. They advise against consuming highly processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, state that no amount of added sugar or non-nutritive sweeteners belongs in a healthy diet, and shift away from the previous emphasis on limiting saturated fat.On food dyes, the FDA banned Red No. 3 under a Biden-era rule finalized in January 2025 over cancer findings in lab rats, and Kennedy’s FDA pushed companies to accelerate removal ahead of the 2027 legal deadline. The FDA also moved to revoke authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B. Removal of the six remaining synthetic dyes rests on a voluntary industry phase-out.Kennedy has called it an “understanding” with industry rather than a binding mandate, and by early 2026 roughly 40 percent of the packaged food supply had pledged near-term removal. A parallel effort to close the GRAS (“Generally Recognized as Safe”) loophole, directed by Kennedy in March 2025, remains a proposed rule pending White House review, and an official definition of ultra-processed food, announced in June 2025, remains unfinalized.USDA has approved waivers in 23 states allowing restrictions on SNAP purchases of items such as soda and candy, with implementation beginning in January 2026 in five states. Under the Food and Nutrition Act, states cannot restrict SNAP purchases on their own; a waiver is federal permission from USDA allowing a state to exclude specific items, in this case soda and candy, from what SNAP benefits can buy.On vaccine policy, Kennedy dismissed all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June 2025 and replaced them with new appointees. In January 2026, CDC announced a revised childhood schedule dropping universal recommendations for flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some meningitis, and RSV vaccines, limiting them to high-risk groups, while HHS canceled nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine research funding.In March 2026, a federal judge ruled the ACIP overhaul unlawful, staying all committee votes taken since June 2025. HHS issued a revised ACIP charter in June 2026 requiring “a balanced range of scientific, clinical and public health expertise.”HHS announced a restructuring on March 27, 2025, consolidating 28 divisions into 15 and cutting the workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees. The plan created the Administration for a Healthy America, combining the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.According to an HHS fact sheet, 3,500 FDA positions were eliminated, roughly 19 percent of the agency’s approximately 18,000 employees, with outside estimates citing comparable reductions of about 20 percent at both FDA and CDC. CDC has since reinstated about one-third of the roughly 2,400 positions it initially cut.On medical education, Kennedy sent a letter to medical schools in January 2026 urging a minimum of 40 hours of nutrition education, built on 71 competencies drawn from a 2024 JAMA Network Open proposal.As of June 8, 2026, 73 of roughly 160 U.S. medical schools had signed the pledge. Eight accrediting and licensing bodies, including the National Board of Medical Examiners and the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners, also agreed to integrate nutrition competencies into their standards. The National Board of Medical Examiners confirmed that approximately 15 percent of its licensing exam content will assess nutrition and its clinical application. Previously, medical students received an average of just 1.2 hours of nutrition instruction per year.On drug pricing, President Trump signed Executive Order 14297 on May 12, 2025, directing federal agencies to align U.S. drug prices with those in comparable wealthy nations. The initiative is primarily driven by the White House and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz rather than by Kennedy directly, though Kennedy has said he expects the price reductions to extend to Medicare and private markets. By December 2025, 16 pharmaceutical companies had signed voluntary agreements to sell drugs to Medicaid at MFN-aligned prices in exchange for a three-year tariff reprieve.During his short tenure, RFK Jr. has done so much for the American people. However, he continues to be vilified in the press. His recommendation that the vaccine schedule should be reviewed and that many vaccines should be made voluntary has even been equated with hating children or wanting people to die. Publications such as The Conversation and The Washington Post have been consistently critical, using terms such as “undermining vaccine science,” “endangering health,” and “spreading disinformation.” Democrats have also pushed back against removing sugar and unhealthy foods from SNAP, arguing that doing so violates people’s rights.In late June 2026, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that USDA exceeded its statutory authority in approving waivers for Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, finding the Food and Nutrition Act’s definition of food governs SNAP purchases. Waivers for other states, including Indiana, Idaho, Arkansas, and Virginia, were not part of that suit and remain in effect.The post The RFK Jr. Checkup: The Many Things the Secretary Has Done to Make America Healthy Again appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.