Making America healthy again will take all of us: A conversation with Brenda Blunt, senior director of health policy
Brenda Blunt, ORAU senior director of health policy, is passionate about the connections between nutrition and both physical and mental health. She is a mom, grandmother, wife, nurse, primal health coach, farmer and policy wonk. Blunt says all of those roles together make health and how we can better care for ourselves important to her. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, rolls out his plan to Make America Healthy Again, much of the focus is on the role of better nutrition and its connection to health. Blunt was MAHA before it was cool, and often leans into the teachings of Florence Nightingale, who advocated for a holistic view of health that emphasized the importance of fresh air, clean water, efficient drainage, cleanliness of patients and care areas, and sunlight. In this conversation, Blunt and hosts Michael Holtz and Matthew Underwood discuss how we got to being one of the richest countries in the world and one of the least healthy, how we didn’t get here overnight, how government agencies can work together to help Americans make better choices, and how we can individually and collectively take steps to make ourselves and the country healthier.
Listen to Brenda’s full interview.
As young children, we learn that the parts of our bodies are reliant on each other to function properly. The digestive, endocrine, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems are all part of the larger whole of the human body, and to take care of that body, it’s important to eat right and exercise. However, Brenda Blunt, senior director of health policy at ORAU, recently discussed why it’s a little more complicated than that in an episode of Further Together, the ORAU Podcast.
“I am a mom, I am a grandmother, I am a wife, I am a nurse, I have a primal health coach certification, I have been a farmer, I'm a policy wonk. All of those roles together make health so important to me,” she explained. “Those roles really have educated me on the interrelatedness of how we live our lives, how that's directly connected to our own health and wellness, and what we expose ourselves to, whether it be what we eat, whether it be toxins in the air, whether it's water. There have been stories over the years about lead and municipal water sources or contamination from other things, whether it's what we put on our skin, what's in the lotions that we use, what's in cosmetics that we use, what's in the medications that we take or put on our skin, all of these things impact our bodies and our health. And we fundamentally have to be stewards of the body that we have, as well as the land that we are on, the people that are around us. So to me, it becomes a fundamental basis for how we live life.”
Through the course of her career, Blunt has cared for patients from the beginning to the end of their lives—from neonatal intensive care to palliative care and hospice. She explained that while these patients are incredibly vulnerable, their families require care too.
“The health of one person impacts the health of another person,” she said. “And there are so many things that are within our control. But there are diagnoses that are outside of our control. When we talk about what we're seeing nationally now and the conversation that we're going to get into, we are focused on what are those chronic diseases that we can have an impact on by some choices that we make in our life.”
While it’s important to make positive lifestyle decisions when it comes to your health, those choices may not be able to stop certain illnesses. For example, some cancers are caused by genetic predisposition, or environmental exposure like smoking or chemicals in food.
“When you start to look at food, then you get to a starting point, and you start to look at the differences in processed foods, ultra processed foods, the differences between meat raised by a regenerative agriculture farmer and the meat raised on a feedlot,” said Blunt. “The composition of the fats that are different, what are the chemicals that are in our meat?”
Blunt says all of those factors matter, which is why nutrition and health is important to her. The way we source foods today is different from the way foods were sourced just one generation ago. While our grandparents may have grown produce in their own garden, and bought meats from local butcher shops, today we buy foods that come from all over the world.
“As our society has changed, we have developed a liking for ultra processed foods,” Blunt explained. “They're convenient. There is a whole science around how to make them taste better and what to put in them, and how much sugar to put in them. They use high fructose corn syrup because we have an excess of corn, and then we need to use that. The problem is then we subsidize healthcare. So we're subsidizing the farming and the raising of the corn, and then we subsidize the healthcare on the other end. But the food companies are producing what people buy and what people eat, so we as a consumer have choices to make around that.”
The problem, as a consumer, is knowing which choice is the right one. There are so many options when it comes to where to buy your food. Educating ourselves takes time and resources that are simply not available to everyone.
“We don't educate around that in our little children all the way through high school and early adulthood, but we also don't educate our physicians about it. We don't educate our nurses and other providers, and we don't necessarily pay for nutritionists,” Blunt said. “Some insurance plans have some coverage, but largely, for most people, that's not covered under their insurance. They can go and get their prescription filled, but they can't work with a nutritionist to change their diet, and they can't afford to pay for that out of pocket. When you start coupling all of these things together, it has pushed us down this road of these poor health outcomes, not knowing how to get away from them, struggling to be better.”
It's easy to be overwhelmed, especially when all of us are doing the best that we can, with the knowledge that we have, in the time available to us. Organic produce and free-range, grass-fed meats are expensive. However, Blunt says that while that initial investment can be returned upon by making fewer doctor’s appointments, making this change is not a quick fix. It takes a long time before the health advantages appear.
“Our system and our society is about just treating symptoms and doing the quick fixes. And unfortunately, we didn't get here quickly. We're not going to get out of it quickly, whether that's personally or on a national level, but we have to take the first step,” she explained.
So, what is that first step? Blunt acknowledged the impact of Florence Nightingale’s book, “Notes on Nursing,” in her own philosophy.
“Nightingale said, ‘We need fresh air, we need pure water, we need to manage our waste and sanitation, we need cleanliness, and we need direct sunlight,’” said Blunt. “And if you sit back and think about that, everything that we're talking about today, you can fit into those if you adjust for the fact that we are now in 2025, and this was written in 1859.”
Blunt also called Nightingale’s words of expertise an “art and a science,” meaning that no one singular answer would work for every person, as well as taking mental and spiritual needs into account when considering physical health.
It’s critical to consider what steps are actually possible when trying to make better health decisions. That includes changing habits, buying healthier foods and becoming more aware. Some people are able to cut out processed foods or addictive substances cold turkey, but that’s not the case for everyone, and that can be planned around. Likewise, not every family can afford to toss out their entire pantry and start over. The key is making the informed decision that’s right for you.
“These are slow changes, but you have to stick with it. You have to be disciplined, you have to be motivated, and that's where the support system comes in,” said Blunt. “It's much easier to be accountable when you have a support system than it is when you're trying to just be accountable to yourself.”