Hospital food rarely gets rave reviews. But the Trump administration's efforts to get hospitals to abandon unhealthy foods face criticism for going too far.
The Department of Health and Human Services sent notices to hospitals asking them to align their food purchases with the administration's 2025-30 dietary guidelines to ensure continued eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare payments. “We congratulate the many hospitals that have committed to improving their food offerings and hope that all hospital systems will do so,” said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon.
Kennedy's top adviser, Calley Means, took to social media to explain the initiative, urging the public to report hospitals that do not comply with the guidance. The comment included a link to an HHS web page with a toll-free complaint number typically used for medical bills.
The warnings drew harsh criticism from critics who said the directive does not take into account that patients' specific dietary needs are often different from those of the rest of the population.
“It's always a struggle to get people to eat. Losing weight in the hospital increases the risk of mortality,” said sleep medicine specialist Mary Talley Bowden, who has often sided with Make America Healthy Again causes but criticized the administration's call to report rapes in X, posting: “Give me a break, Calley. A hospital snitch line for soda?”
“It's a little tyrannical,” he said in an interview.
HHS can withhold or threaten to fund federal funds if hospitals violate mandatory minimum health and safety standards set by the agency. The rules stipulate that hospitals must protect patient privacy, for example, and maintain infection control.
The standards address hospital feeding, but do not explicitly refer to the 2025-30 dietary guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Rather, the standards mandate that “each patient's nutritional needs must be met in accordance with recognized dietary practices” and list other requirements for hospitals, such as having access to a qualified dietitian.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “has no legal basis to do this, but hospitals and nursing homes can't afford to ignore it completely because of what it indicates about potential enforcement actions,” said Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan.
The reaction was immediate after the Trump administration notified that hospitals and nursing homes should limit sugary drinks and dietary supplements in favor of what the Department of Health and Human Services calls “real food.”
