RFK Jr.'s Food Pyramid Guides MAHA Path for US Policy, Industry

Nutrition recommendations the US government released Wednesday are set to play a key role influencing regulatory changes and federally funded programs that determine what food tens of millions of Americans eat.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2025 through 2030, issued by the US Health and Human Services and Agriculture departments, promote eating more protein and feature a new inverted food pyramid.

“Today marks a decisive change in federal nutrition policy,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a White House press conference.

The guidelines are a key plank in Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” mission to overhaul federal policy with an aim toward reducing chronic disease. Federal agencies’ plans to align regulations and food procurement decisions with the guidelines, however, could take months or years to implement.

As many of Kennedy’s food-related goals for reducing chronic disease remain in nascent stages a year into the second Trump administration, the guidelines serve as a roadmap that will inform the government’s future actions.

A handful of near-finalized rulemakings could draw on the new nutrition standards, which are revised roughly every five years. The guidelines also provide food companies a bellwether of which administration priorities may drive changes within federal food programs.

Regulatory Influence

Although the dietary guidelines lack direct enforcement teeth, they’re a key resource for federal officials developing regulations.

One of the first proposed rules that might reflect the new guidelines is a Food and Drug Administration effort to require a new nutrition label on packaged foods summarizing the product’s level of saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.

“I think there’s a question of whether any changes would be needed to what they’re seeking to require on front-of-pack labeling to be consistent with these dietary guidelines,” said Jessica O’Connell, co-chair of Covington and Burling LLP’s global food, drug, and device practice group.

The most current dietary guidelines often form the criteria used in nutrition-related rulemakings. The FDA in 2025 based its regulatory overhaul determining which food products could be labeled as “healthy” on the previous five-year standards.

Separately, the guidelines will inform USDA’s recalibration of a rule being finalized “soon” requiring increased food variety at grocery stores selling to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program users, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said during the Wednesday press briefing.

“Requiring those retailers, those 250,000 retailers across America to double their stocking of healthier foods, that will allow us to immediately get these better foods into” communities, Rollins said.

One question left open by the guidelines is whether its definition of “highly processed foods” as products containing ingredients including added sugars, refined carbohydrates, or chemical additives signal further FDA action to standardize a definition of ultra-processed foods, O’Connell said.

The agency sought public comment in 2025 on whether or how to singularly define ultra-processed foods, to the chagrin of many food manufacturers and associations. Wednesday’s guidelines used the term “highly” instead of “ultra” processed foods and recommended avoiding them.

International Dairy Foods Association CEO Michael Dykes in an emailed statement warned that the guidelines’ focus on highly processed foods risked confusing consumers and policymakers.

“As we noted in recent comments to federal agencies, any move toward defining or classifying foods by processing level is premature and should be informed by rigorous, consensus-based science,” said Dykes, whose group works for the dairy industry.

Food Program Impact

Beyond shaping how consumer food products get regulated, the dietary guidelines serve as the basis for how the government funds programs that feed tens of millions of people at schools, military bases, and veteran’s hospitals across the nation.

Government officials spent more than $142 billion on federal food assistance programs in fiscal 2024, according to USDA data. Initiatives like the National School Lunch Program alone feed nearly 30 million children a day.

Those market incentives drive food makers to reformulate products according to the latest guidelines so they remain eligible for procurement funding used by schools, said Jerold Mande, a former nutrition official who served at USDA and FDA across three presidential administrations.

“Not every agency needs rulemaking, and number one on that list would be the Department of Defense,” Mande said. “They could change the policy this week if they want, and that’ll be interesting to see, because historically the admirals and generals at the DOD have been some of the fiercest proponents of healthy eating.”

Officials may also tweak federal school meal programs to align with the new guidelines which—for example—emphasized consuming full-fat dairy, counter to earlier versions that promoted low-fat versions.

“The next step might be to—for federally funded programs—say you can only use federal funds to purchase whole milk,” said Jose Vela Jr., a member at Clark Hill PLC.

Congress passed a measure in late 2025 awaiting President Donald Trump‘s signature that would require schools to offer whole milk as an option in federally funded programs for the first time in a decade.

To benefit from school meal programs, many food companies simply make alternative products that align with the latest dietary guidelines. Products eligible for purchase using the SNAP program, also known as food stamps, aren’t subject to the same requirements.

O’Connell and Mande questioned whether this administration will make any moves to sync food stamps with the new guidelines in the coming year.

Considering more than 41 million people use SNAP benefits to buy groceries every month, that kind of change could significantly influence how food manufacturers sell their products, Mande said. Rollins and Kennedy have already demonstrated some interest in using the program to achieve health goals by soliciting 18 states so far to restrict food stamp users from buying sweets and sugary drinks with federal benefits.

“If they use SNAP as a lever, as an incentive, and told food companies, ‘you have to meet these requirements if you want to sell your food in the SNAP program,’ that’s going to change it for everyone,” Mande said.