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Babies are not ordinarily a fixture of closed-door White House meetings. But when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, convened a group of women this month for a discussion on nutrition and other topics, a healthy-eating activist who calls herself “the Food Babe” was stunned to see President Trump’s press secretary with her eight-month-old on her lap.
While several female cabinet secretaries looked on, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, lamented that baby formula seems healthier in Europe than in the United States, where a recent study found that many varieties are laden with added sugars. Last week, Mr. Kennedy met with formula makers and announced a push to expand options for “safe, reliable and nutritious infant formula.”
The activist, Vani Hari, was thrilled. “It was such an amazing opportunity to see some solidification of the MAHA agenda across the different cabinets,” she said, using the initials for Mr. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. She called the event “a dream come true.”
The gathering of “MAHA Moms,” as Mr. Kennedy calls the corps of influencers and activists who follow him, was one of a series of choreographed events held in recent weeks by Mr. Kennedy, who occupies a highly unusual place in Washington. The scion of a famous Democratic family, his embrace of Mr. Trump, his tendency to spin wild theories out of kernels of truth and his promotion of what critics say is quack medicine have made him one of the most polarizing figures in the cabinet, even as he has developed a loyal following of his own.
Yet even some critics of Mr. Kennedy applaud his focus on obesity and healthy eating. He makes powerful industries and civil servants uncomfortable, holding forth from his newly powerful perch as head of the Department of Health and Human Services on an eclectic menu of topics — offering up alternative remedy ideas one day while blasting industrial food companies the next.
Mr. Kennedy has also made several moves that could have significant implications for the food industry. He instructed food executives to rid the food supply of artificial dyes and followed up with a video message on social media: “They understand that they have a new sheriff in town.”
Mr. Kennedy declined an interview request.
It is far too soon to know whether Mr. Kennedy will make a real impact or whether these early steps are more posturing than substance. The Trump administration is taking actions that would seem to undermine his goals, such as disbanning an expert committee studying how to spare infants from a deadly bacteria that contributed to the decision in 2022 to temporarily shut down an Abbott Nutrition infant formula plant.
Mr. Kennedy could run into resistance from Congress. His disdain for the refined oils made from certain plants — seed oils like canola, soy and corn — and the ultra-processed foods that contain them has alarmed Republicans including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, whose farmer constituents receive subsidies from the government to grow the plants that produce the oils.
Mr. Kennedy’s messages have been confusing. Dr. Katharine Wells, the director of public health in the city of Lubbock, said she is having trouble persuading parents to vaccinate their children because they think “vitamin A is protective, like the vaccine.”
But Kennedy allies were thrilled when the C.D.C. added a mention of vitamin A in its measles advisory on its website. Del Bigtree, Mr. Kennedy’s former communications director, lauded the move on a recent podcast. “My God,” he said, “do you see what a small step for mankind we just made?”
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