Obesity medicine specialist Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford was named a member of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Both Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Secretary Xavier Becerra, who heads the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), confirmed her nomination on Jan. 26. The DGAC consists of 20 "nationally recognized" physicians, according to the USDA.
A press release about the committee explained that the DGAC "will examine the relationship between diet and health across all life stages, and will use a health equity lens throughout its evidence review to ensure factors such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity and culture are described and considered to the greatest extent possible based on the information provided in the scientific literature and data."
"The committee will be tasked with reviewing the current body of science on key nutrition topics and developing a scientific report that includes its independent assessment of the evidence and recommendations for HHS and USDA as they develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans."
According to the statement, the report will focus on an equity lens to health – with the committee set to zoom in on socioeconomic status, race and more to better determine how to approach obesity.
The committee updates federal dietary guidelines every five years, acting as a cornerstone in public health perception.
Stanford: Doctors don't understand obesity
Stanford came under fire after her comments during an appearance on the CBS News program "60 Minutes," where she tackled the issue of obesity. The specialist argued that diet and exercise have little impact on obesity, pointing her finger at genetics instead.
"The No. 1 cause of obesity is genetics," she told program host Lesley Stahl. "That means if you were born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50 to 85 percent likelihood of having the disease yourself – even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management [and] stress management." (Related: Instead of diet and exercise, the establishment wants obese children to take drugs and undergo invasive surgeries.)
Stanford also told the "60 Minutes" host to throw the concept of willpower "out the window." According to the DGAC member, some obese patients still fail to lose weight even though they eat healthy diets and exercise consistently. Stanford also dubbed obesity a disease of the brain.
"For many of us, we can go on a diet. Something like 'The Biggest Loser,' right? You go and you restrict people. You make them work out for 10 hours a day, and then you feed them 500 calories."
"For most people, they will acutely lose weight. But 96 percent of those participants in 'The Biggest Loser' regained their weight because their brains worked well. It was supposed to bring them back to store what they needed – or what the brain thinks it needs."
The obesity specialist also claimed that an overwhelming majority of American doctors hold a bias toward obese patients. "Doctors do not understand obesity," she told Stahl.
Stanford's remarks about obesity coincide with an uptick of obesity in recent years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of obese Americans increased to 41.9 percent in 2020, compared to 30.5 percent in 2017.
Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health also issued a similar warning. It said obesity numbers have been steadily increasing since the 1990s, with 43 million preschool-aged children being reported as obese in 2010.
"If nothing is done to reverse the epidemic, more than one billion adults are projected to be obese by 2030."
Watch this One America News report about how teenagers' lack of exercise increases their obesity risk, contrary to Stanford's claims.
This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.
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Obesity is bankrupting America, disease costs soar.
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