ANTI-VAX AND PROTEIN-MAXX

THE HEALTH “FREEDOM” MOVEMENT TAKES POWER.

- ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN

"I DON'T WANT to be told how many calories are in my Big Mac meal or my quarter-pounder meal. I don’t want the government telling me that I can’t put salt on my food,” Sean Hannity declared on Fox News in 2010. “Ilike junk food. Ilike McDonald’s. I like Wendy’s. I like Burger King. Ilove Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

This was a common sentiment for conservatives of the era, atime when many on the right viewed attempts to promote health as left-wing and therefore suspect. Some of this Republican pushback was rooted in righteous opposition to intrusions on the free market and consumer choice, as when Democrats attempted to impose sin taxes on sodas or limit the size of sugary drinks stores could sell. But too often, it seemed more like oppositional defiance disorder.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, conservatives spent multiple news cycles mocking Barack Obama’s alleged arugula consumption. After her defeat, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential hopeful, handed out sugar cookies at an elementary school and drank from a Big Gulp soda cup onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Republicans repeatedly mocked first lady Michelle Obama’s healthy living campaign, Let’s Move!, even when it proposed no mandates. The first lady’s 2011 comment that babies “who are breast-fed longer have a lower tendency to be obese” unleashed a torrent of criticism, with right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin calling her “Big Mother.” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) derided an IRS announcement that people could deduct the cost of breast pumps as “the new definition of ananny state.”

Flash forward to 2025. Now wellness consciousnessis flourishing anew—on the right.