The unexpected pushback against America’s junk food culture

If I told you something not entirely awful has come out of the current US administration, you might start to worry about me. If I added that it was unveiled by Robert F Kennedy, the health secretary politely described as maverick (other much less polite terms are available), you’d think I’d taken leave of my senses.  

And yet… 

Earlier this year ‘RFK’ announced a new set of dietary guidelines, introduced with a simple message: ‘eat real food’. The advice urged Americans to move away from highly processed, sugary, additive-laden meals and towards “whole, nutrient-dense” options such as vegetables, fruit, dairy, protein, healthy fats and whole grains. From a figure better known for courting controversy, it amounted to an unexpected pushback against America’s junk food culture. 

Not everyone is convinced. Some cardiologists are uneasy about the enthusiasm for full-fat meat and dairy as part of the mix, a stance that has hardly endeared the message to vegetarians or environmentalists either. Others warn that romanticising older dietary patterns risks glossing over the health problems associated with mid-20th-century eating habits. 

But many see it as a welcome rejection of the ‘obesogenic’ diets which have hampered the Western world for decades. Among them, the UK’s Dr David Unwin, one of the leading lights in helping people overcome type 2 diabetes and other chronic health problems via dramatic changes in their diet – particularly cutting down on sugary carbs and processed food.  

Speaking at the Sustainable Foods Summit in London recently, Unwin gave a strong endorsement of the new US guidelines. Quick to stress that he was no fan of the Trump White House, he added that “nobody was more astonished than me when I discovered that the diet they were espousing was pretty well what I’d been advising for the past 13 years for my own patients”. 

As a GP in a working-class Liverpool suburb, Unwin has spent much of his career treating the steady rise of type 2 diabetes. When he joined his practice in 1986, just 56 patients were living with the condition. Today the number is around 570. The increase reflects a wider trend across the UK, where rates of diabetes have climbed sharply alongside diets increasingly dominated by ultra-processed food. 

From a figure better known for controversy, it’s an unexpected pushback against junk food culture

Speaking at the Sustainable Foods Summit in London recently, Unwin gave a strong endorsement of the new US guidelines. Quick to stress that he was no fan of the Trump White House, he added that “nobody was more astonished than me when I discovered that the diet they were espousing was pretty well what I’d been advising for the past 13 years for my own patients”. 

As a GP in a working-class Liverpool suburb, Unwin has spent much of his career treating the steady rise of type 2 diabetes. When he joined his practice in 1986, just 56 patients were living with the condition. Today the number is around 570. The increase reflects a wider trend across the UK, where rates of diabetes have climbed sharply alongside diets increasingly dominated by ultra-processed food. 

A sufferer from type 2 diabetes himself, which he puts down to half a lifetime of poor eating habits, like most doctors, Unwin once relied primarily on medication to manage the disease. Metformin remains the standard treatment, and newer drugs such as GLP-1 therapies have transformed care for many patients by helping control blood sugar and support weight loss.   

Disarmingly, Unwin credits one of his own patients with his shift from drugs to diet. She’d spent time researching how the foods she ate affected her diabetes and subsequently made massive changes to her eating habits. She “came in hopping mad with me that I [hadn’t offered her this advice myself]”. How did he react? “I was interested, but sceptical.”  

Scepticism turned to surprise after tests showed that the woman’s condition had improved dramatically. He recruited a control group of 275 willing patients who had type 2 diabetes, put them on the same low-carb, low-sugar diet, and got the same results. As of this year, the approach has resulted in 150 of his patients going into remission – no longer needing drugs, and enjoying dramatically better health. They include Unwin, a living example of ‘physician heal thyself’. 

Nobody was more astonished than me to find that the diet they were espousing was what I had been advising for 13 years

One common objection is that healthy diets are out of reach for those on low incomes. Unwin says the opposite often proves true. When patients cut out sugary snacks, fizzy drinks and heavily processed foods, many find their weekly food bills fall rather than rise. With guidance on shopping and cooking, he says, people quickly learn practical ways to prepare simple, affordable meals as shown on his BBC documentary ‘The Truth About Carbs’. 

None of this means medication has lost its place. GLP-1 drugs have brought major advances in diabetes treatment, although doctors note that weight regain is common if treatment stops, and researchers are still studying the long-term effects of widespread use. 

His experience – and that of his patients – is a welcome reminder that we are, after all, what we eat. And if the new US guidelines – so close to those prescribed by Unwin – trigger that realisation among more Americans, then they will go down as a surprising silver lining indeed, spotted over Washington.

Main image: Julia Zolotova