Donald Trump's pick of conspiracy theorist and former environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services has triggered widespread backlash from public health experts, given his longstanding opposition to childhood vaccines and water fluoridation, and promotion of antisemitic theories about COVID-19 infection patterns.
But Fox News host Jesse Watters is thrilled about the prospect, telling co-panelists on "The Five" that Kennedy will figure out how to wipe out obesity and make average Americans attractive again.
"This is going to be so much fun to get skinny. And having everybody be hot again," said Watters, who has interviewed Kennedy in the past. "Because if you look at 1990, this was just a smoking hot country, all right? Then everybody started getting obese and overweight."
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"What happened in 1990?" he continued. "They put ultra-processed food into the food pyramid, they unleashed pharmaceutical drugs into the doctors' offices, and they moved everyone out of factories into offices to stare at a screen all day, so we all just look like Jabba the Hutt. And so he comes along and says, 'Let's just clean up the food, and everybody maybe take a hike' — how can you be against that? Make America hot again!"
It's unclear what Watters is referring to, as — although there is a link between excessive processed sugar consumption and obesity, and between sedentarism and obesity — processed foods, drugs, and office jobs did not begin in 1990. Moreover, his mention of drugs is odd, as there is some early evidence that obesity rates in America may be dropping due to the introduction of a new class of weight-loss drugs.
Kennedy, despite pushing a number of conspiracy theories at odds with public health, has aligned a bit more with scientific professionals in advocating for less processed food and more exercise; notably, however, when former fiirst lady Michelle Obama tried to create better food standards for school lunches, Republicans and right-leaning pundits pushed back aggressively on the idea.
Watch the video below or at the link here.