Despite the skepticism and outrage over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Services, there is a lot that he can do to reassure doubters in the medical community.

His continued focus on the need to improve our food quality and fight the obesity epidemic head-on is one major thing, especially if you see food as medicine (as I do) or recognize that a healthy person with a normal weight is much less likely to get sick and need expensive health care.

Kennedy needs to follow through on these ideas, not only because they are essential to decreasing health care costs and turning us from a sick-care to a health care system, but also because they are likely to garner bipartisan support. He will need to take on the food and agriculture lobbies, not just reform the Food and Drug Administration.

In the meantime, I would recommend supporting all tools we have to fight obesity and its consequences, including semaglutide and related drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc.) This is not an either-or situation, as we must get our weight down any way we can with over 40 percent of Americans obese.

When it comes to water fluoridation, I am hoping that RFK Jr. adopts a more moderate approach rather than a ban — raising a question rather than providing a quick answer. Clearly, water fluoridation has cut down dramatically........

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