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.
