Kennedy announced on Thursday that he's gotten new data that shows a positive change in America's longevity, two years after President Donald Trump took office. Americans are living longer today than they were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with federal data showing life expectancy reached 79 years in 2024, the highest level ever recorded in the United States. But whether that improvement can be credited to Trump remains a matter of debate, since longevity trends are often shaped by long-term factors including public health, medical advancements, drug overdose rates and demographics rather than any single policy.
Americans are living longer than they did several years ago, but longevity gains have slowed considerably compared with much of the 20th century, and the United States continues to lag behind many other wealthy nations. Speaking at the RNC midterm convention, Kennedy highlighted a series of health-related trends that he said reflected improvements in Americans' well-being. "Preliminary data that I received two days ago from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates we have reversed a 30-year decline in longevity," Kennedy said.
Newsweek reached out to the Health and Human Services via email for the data that Kennedy referenced, but did not receive a response in time for publication. He praised Trump for keeping the promises he made to Kennedy when they joined forces on the campaign after Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race. Kennedy, who spearheaded the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, said real food sales were up eight percent in 2025 and that Americans were eating less processed food.
Data from the CDC showed that between 2021 and 2023, on average, 53 percent of calories consumed by adults each day were from ultra-processed foods, down from about 56 percent in 2017 and 2018. The Organic Trade Association found a 7 percent increase in sales of organic food in 2025. He also praised Trump's administration for reducing the obesity rate in the United States, dropping it by 7 percent after decades of increases.
According to Gallup, the U.S. adult obesity rate fell from a peak of 39.9 percent in 2022 to 36.4 percent in 2026, a decline of 3.5 percentage points, or about 8.8 percent relative to the peak. [wellness.goalbmi.com] Over the past three decades, Americans have generally lived longer, though the pattern has been uneven. In the mid-1990s, life expectancy in the United States was around 75 years. By 2000, it had climbed to roughly 76.8 years.
The trend continued through the early 2000s, reaching approximately 78.7 years by 2010. Growth then began to slow, with life expectancy hovering around 78.8 to 78.9 years during much of the decade. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted that long-running pattern.
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