The food justice movement, which  emerged from the social movements of the 1960s, has long focused on reforming the food system and improving diets. Organizations  such as HEAL Food Alliance, Community Food Advocates, Food Chain Workers Alliance, and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance have fought for broad goals such as building more collective power to improve food policies and systems, changing food and farming practices to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, and making healthier food choices available to people of color. Together with local campaigns, these national organizations have also worked to win more specific changes such as making school lunches healthier and free for all children and increasing job benefits for low-wage food workers.

While the food justice and MAHA movements hold many of the same goals, they differ deeply in other ways. We believe food-justice advocates could benefit from a clearer understanding of where their objectives and approaches overlap but also diverge from those of MAHA, as well as a more defined strategy for how to interact with the movement and decide which MAHA messages to amplify and which to subject to public debate.

What do food justice advocates and MAHA supporters have in common? Both believe that the current U.S. food system and the diets it produces contribute to poor health, especially as compared to other countries. Both believe that the profit-seeking and market practices of food and beverage producers, fast food chains, and food marketers actively promote chronic disease, obesity, premature death, and preventable illness.

Both agree that food companies must change their marketing practices, especially to children, and limit chemicals, dyes, and additives in food products. Both also agree that improvements in the rules for school food and federal food assistance programs can lead to improvements in diets and health.

How do the movements differ? Whereas food-justice activists stress the need for collective and public action and make reducing inequities in healthy food access a top priority, MAHA followers emphasize the importance of individual and parental responsibility for diet and health, even for the disadvantaged. While the social justice side views profit-driven markets as a key cause of the nation’s food and health problems, most MAHA leaders (if not its rank-and-filers) endorse market-based solutions to food and health problems.

The two movements also disagree on what constitutes evidence for changing policy. MAHA distrusts established science and often rejects the scientific process that most independent researchers and food justice advocates believe constitutes the basis for policy. By relying on “mom influencers” rather than scientists, MAHA adherents show their belief in the power of narratives of personal experience. And by using  evidence gathered by non-mainstream investigators, they tap into public distrust of established science.

Fifteen years ago, the food writer Michael Pollan wrote that food movements of the day were a “big lumpy tent”  in which the various factions beneath it sometimes worked at cross-purposes. We recognize that this remains true for the food justice movement. It is also true for the MAHA movement.

Today’s MAHA movement includes activist parents fighting to improve school food and get rid of pesticides, wellness industry influencers and entrepreneurs like Calley and Casey Means, anti-vaxxers, and, of course, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Its contributors include major corporations and right-wing leaders.

In 2024, the  largest contributor to the group’s super-PAC, the MAHA Alliance,  was Elon Musk and his SpaceX, together contributing $6 million—and this year the MAHA Center, headed by Tony Lyons, a major financial supporter of RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign, funded the controversial  Mike Tyson “Eat Real Food” Super Bowl ad for a reported $8 million. Whether the private interests of wellness entrepreneurs like the Means, and billionaires like Musk, will take precedence over the MAHA mom influencers remains to be seen.

This heterogeneity poses both an opportunity and a challenge to those seeking alliances, raising the question: Is it possible to build on commonalities given the deep differences and this era’s sectarianism and polarization? We believe the food justice movement should pursue this chance for new partnerships, despite the risks in this path. Successful movements build power by winning over new constituencies in working toward common goals; the potential for forging a shared action plan is worth pursuing. To do so, we suggest six actions for food-justice advocates.

1. Talk to MAHA activists. The groups should create forums and spaces where they can discuss commonalities and differences openly without insulting or disrespecting those who differ. Open discussion is a prerequisite for exploring the possibility of shared goals.

2. Argue with respect. We acknowledge the risks of attempting to work with and win over MAHA supporters. In some cases, we will have to agree to disagree. In others, we will forcefully debate in public settings. In all situations, we must not lose sight of common goals or conflicting values.  By listening carefully to MAHA arguments, food justice proponents can better understand its supporters’ worldviews and engage them in finding opportunities for joint action.