RFK Jr. says Americans were healthier when his uncle was president. Is he right?

President John F. Kennedy connected August 4, 1961 connected his measurement to a play connected Cape Cod. As president, Kennedy weighted exercise, beingness fittingness and vaccines. Bob Schutz/AP hide caption

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Bob Schutz/AP

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. often says that Americans were healthier erstwhile he was a kid successful nan '50s and '60s. People weren't truthful overweight aliases taking truthful galore medications. Diabetes and autism successful children were unheard of. Food was caller and wholesome.

Life expectancy interrogator Dr. Steven Woolf is Kennedy's age, and he remembers immoderate different features of that time. "We were driven astir successful cars that had nary seatbelts. There were nary babe car seats; location were nary airbags," he says. "People smoked connected airplanes; they smoked successful restaurants."

Woolf, who is simply a professor emeritus astatine Virginia Commonwealth University, says immoderate concerns that Kennedy talks astir erstwhile he discusses America's wellness are spot on, but that he misses cardinal context, gets facts incorrect and often embraces policies that undermine his ain stated priorities.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to NPR's elaborate petition to remark for this story.

Setting nan scene

The mid-20th period is nan era that Kennedy and President Trump motion to pinch nan "again" of nan Make America Great (and Healthy) Again slogans.

"There is immoderate ground to nan truth that America was healthier then," acknowledges Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a history professor astatine nan New School successful New York. "Americans coming person overmuch much chronic unwellness than they did erstwhile he was a kid, and there's overmuch much processed nutrient today; rates of obesity are very high."

But, she says, "there's besides immoderate countervailing grounds that really punctures nan imagination that this was an era of overmuch much wide health."

To statesman with, American life expectancy in 1960 was almost 10 years shorter than it is today: 69.7 years. And nan starring causes of decease were, successful fact, chronic diseases.

In 1963, for example, "two retired of 3 deaths successful nan United States were caused by 3 chronic diseases: bosom disease, crab and stroke," Woolf says. "So it's hardly nan lawsuit that chronic illness was a non-issue erstwhile he was a child."

Other cardinal context: Health security was a relatively caller invention, women were conscionable starting to go a major portion of nan workforce and group segregation was still a reality successful overmuch of nan country. For Black Americans, life expectancy was importantly shorter in 1960 astatine conscionable 63.6 years.

Space-age food

Then, there's food. Although processed foods were not astir arsenic prevalent arsenic they are today, Petrzela says stiff and shelf-stable foods were besides imbued pinch nan romance of subject and technology.

"This is simply a clip erstwhile everybody had freezers and refrigerators for nan first time, truthful it was almost a flex to beryllium capable to service those foods," she says. Jell-O went mainstream, and nan orangish portion operation Tang and early power bars came into being successful this era. "Those each came from nan truth that like, 'Oh, this is what they eat successful space.' Right? 'This is made successful a lab.'"

Working it out

The strongest ground for Kennedy's nostalgia is nan country's push astir beingness acquisition programs successful that period, says Petrzela, who wrote nan book, Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession.

Even earlier John F. Kennedy was sworn in, he wrote a Sports Illustrated screen story arsenic president-elect successful 1960 calling for Americans to toughen up.

"Our increasing softness, our expanding deficiency of beingness fitness, is simply a menace to our security," he wrote. "The beingness fittingness of our citizens is simply a captious prerequisite to America's realization of its afloat imaginable arsenic a nation, and to nan opportunity of each individual national to make afloat and fruitful usage of his capacities."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., front, pinch his parents and siblings connected their measurement to present gifts to his aunt and uncle aft nan commencement of his relative John F. Kennedy, Jr. successful November 1960. Henry Griffin/AP hide caption

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Henry Griffin/AP

As president, he helped beforehand a sensibility that "exercise is virtuous and bully and makes you a bully American," says Petrzela.

It's worthy pointing out, though, that Secretary Kennedy's strategies are astatine likelihood pinch different awesome priorities of his uncle arsenic president. "JFK loved P.E. and push ups and beryllium ups and each that — he besides loved vaccines," she says. "Remember, these are nan presidencies of JFK and Lyndon Johnson — this is nan Great Society," which was each astir new, large authorities argumentation programs that hoped to reside poverty, beforehand civilian authorities and more.

What's happened since then?

Today, American life expectancy is 77.5 years. That's improved importantly since nan 1960s, but not as overmuch aliases arsenic quickly arsenic it has successful different akin able countries.

First, let's see nan reasons for nan improvements. The deficiency of spot belts and smoking indoors that Woolf remembers from his childhood? Public wellness efforts and caller laws helped make important advancement location — group who would person died of lung crab aliases successful car crashes were saved because of those changes.

Black Americans person besides made gains successful life expectancy, though group gaps stay — nan existent life expectancy for this group is 72.8 years. "The spot wherever we person made possibly nan astir evident advancement successful wellness since 1960 has been that nan conditions of Black Americans were radically improved by nan wellness reforms that came retired of nan civilian authorities movement," says Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a mortality demographer astatine nan University of Minnesota.

There person besides been awesome aesculapian innovations, particularly pinch cancer. "We person caller narcotics and aesculapian technologies that person been very, very effective and successful," Wrigley-Field explains, adding, "you would dream that that would beryllium existent successful 60 years of aesculapian progress."

While chronic diseases are a bigger problem now, that's a inclination that has been underway for much than a century, earlier and aft Secretary Kennedy's uncle was president, Woolf says. "Earlier successful nan 1900s, nan starring causes of decease were infectious diseases, but arsenic we developed antibiotics and vaccines, infectious diseases became little of a threat, and chronic diseases roseate successful importance," he explains.

RFK Jr.'s attack to these problems

Many group who study America's comparatively short life expectancy compared to different developed nations are baffled by Kennedy's argumentation attack to nan problem.

"Sometimes, he says sentences that make sense, like, 'We person a emergence successful chronic diseases,'" says Wrigley-Field. But nan "funhouse reflector aspect," she says, is that "all nan things that you should do because of that are nan nonstop other of what his management is doing to nationalist health."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. successful April 2024, erstwhile he was moving for president. Eva Sakellarides/Paris Match via Getty Images hide caption

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Eva Sakellarides/Paris Match via Getty Images

For instance, Kennedy's biggest move arsenic caput truthful acold has been to trim nan national wellness workforce by astir 25%, done firings and buyouts. In a social media video announcing his plans to restructure nan agency, he implied America's mediocre wellness and life expectancy could beryllium attributed to nan very unit he oversees: "The complaint of chronic illness and crab accrued dramatically arsenic our section has grown — our lifespan has dropped."

Woolf says that relationship doesn't make sense, particularly erstwhile you see immoderate of nan expertise Kennedy is letting locomotion retired nan door. "The main agency successful our national authorities for dealing pinch smoking and wellness is being closed by Kennedy," Woolf says, noting that smoking is still nan leading preventable origin of death successful nan U.S.

He adds that astatine nan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "major centers connected chronic illness itself are being closed." And astatine nan National Institutes for Health, "a ample information of nan investigation portfolio aiming to reside really to trim nan load of chronic illness — nan backing for that is being slashed." HHS did not respond to NPR's petition for remark astir cuts to teams that look applicable to Kennedy's priorities.

It's difficult to quadrate those cuts pinch "a argumentation schedule that's really aiming to make America healthier," Woolf adds. "Fixing nan problem pinch ultra processed foods and food dyes is going to person marginal benefit. Is it worthy doing? Sure. But that's not going to move nan needle connected improving chronic illness aliases extending our life expectancy."

Wrigley-Field adds that really knowing and addressing nan reasons for nan U.S.'s lagging life expectancy is simply a lively technological conversation. "Some of nan debates are about: How overmuch of this is really a communicative astir outer causes of decease — supplier overdoses, homicides, car collisions? Those things each person a really disproportionate effect connected life expectancy because they thin to termination group erstwhile they're beautiful young, wherever if they hadn't died, they would person had a batch of decades of life left."

Increasingly, she says, there's an knowing that different contributing facet is slowed technological advancement successful reducing deaths from bosom attacks and bosom illness "that are specified awesome killers successful nan United States."

That statement is somewhat moot erstwhile some backing for scientific research and for preventing deaths from injuries and overdoses are being trim by Secretary Kennedy successful his overhaul of HHS. That's why his chat astir returning to nan bully wellness of nan 1960s and improving life expectancy are unconvincing to galore experts successful nan field.

For Wrigley-Field, "there's conscionable this mismatch betwixt nan words and nan actions."