Dylan Scott

Which MAHA concerns do you take most seriously?

Jessica Knurick

I think what tends to confuse a lot of people when they first come across my content is the fact that I do sound a lot like the people in MAHA on a surface level — because what I always say is they largely get the problem right. 

Now, at times they overstate the problem. [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] will just cite random statistics, like that nearly 50 percent of American children have type 2 diabetes when it's really less than 1 percent. 

But we do have a chronic disease issue in this country, particularly a lifestyle-related chronic disease issue where more than half of American adults are living with at least one chronic condition and nearly 30 percent are managing multiple chronic illnesses. Many of those are among the leading causes of death in the United States.

I think what MAHA has really tapped into is this idea that we do have a food system that prioritizes profit over people's health. We do have a health care system that largely prioritizes profits, as opposed to most health care systems in the world. We pay twice as much as other countries for health care, and we have worse outcomes. 

Dylan Scott

Who do you see being the core audience for MAHA? 

Jessica Knurick

RFK Jr. has his core base that’s been with him since he was running for president, and over the last couple of decades with his work at the Children’s Health Defense. That core base is really based on an anti-vaccine movement.

Then within the broader MAHA coalition, it is more moms. They really play into this MAHA mom and younger women generally. This isn’t all of them, but I would say that a good representation of MAHA is moms with young kids who are middle- to upper-class white women. That’s a really strong MAHA coalition. They don’t necessarily need to think about all of the factors that play into the health of Americans, particularly low-income Americans. But they genuinely want a healthier food environment. They want to see an improvement in health outcomes for the people they know and, for some of them, Americans overall. 

Moms with young kids are a very vulnerable population. I know this because I’m a mom with young kids. We really just want to do what's best for our children. We are very susceptible to fear-based messaging like, You can’t trust this in your food. This is going to hurt your kids. I stitched a video a few months ago that started with the question: Are you poisoning your kids?

That messaging really, really triggers us. We’re the audience for it. And the MAHA movement does that quite well.

Dylan Scott

Who do you see as the audience for your own content?

Jessica Knurick

When I started, I just didn't see a voice opposing the misleading narratives that I saw out there. So I was really trying to reach people who were open to hearing another side but just hadn't had that opportunity. They were concerned, just like I’ve always been concerned, about our food environment, about policies that are impacting our public health institutions or our public health outcomes. But they were being a bit misled by the narrative. They got into the wrong algorithm, and they were seeing the same thing over and over. They just literally hadn't had an opportunity to hear an evidence-based perspective through a public health lens. People who still care about science and evidence, but maybe they just didn’t think about these topics before.

I would love to reach people who have already been misled by this movement, who really do care about changing systems, because I think that if we can diagnose the causes correctly, that will give us more momentum to actually make real change. 

One of my goals is to never be condescending or talk down to the people in the MAHA movement who have just been caught up by it because they've never thought of these issues. They really genuinely care, but they’ve just only ever heard the MAHA rhetoric. 

Dylan Scott

How do you bring in the people who like RFK Jr. without alienating them? 

Jessica Knurick

Yeah, it’s something that I’ve given a lot of thought to. I'll tell you that there’s a human component in this where I’m just so distraught at seeing what he’s doing to our public health agencies and the science, even if I wanted to be kind in my tone to him. 

But what you’ll see is that I don’t disparage him as a person. I talk about what he’s doing and how it’s detrimental. The people that I will respond to, I don’t attack them personally. I go after the misinformation that they’re spreading. I try to really stay focused on that. 

My approach will turn people off. I'm not going to get everybody because people who love RFK Jr. will come to my page or they’ll watch a video and they’ll hear my tone towards him, and they won’t even listen to the rest. I know that. 

But for every person like that, there are people who you know will be like, Oh my gosh, how can she take such a strong stance about him, and then be more inquisitive and listen more. I've had several people send me DMs, somebody literally said this to me the other day: You know, I came to your page as a hater. But I just kept watching, and you kept backing up your claims and you kept explaining things in a way that I understood.